A significant internet disruption has impacted numerous websites and applications globally, with users experiencing difficulties connecting to the internet due to issues with Amazon’s cloud computing service.
The affected services include Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and Duolingo, along with various Amazon-owned enterprises, including major retail platforms and the Ring doorbell company.
In the UK, Lloyds Bank and its associated brands, Halifax Bank and Bank of Scotland, were impacted, with HM Revenue & Customs also facing challenges accessing their website on Monday morning. Additionally, Ring users in the UK reported non-functioning doorbells on social media.
In the UK alone, there were tens of thousands of reports concerning issues with individual applications across various platforms. Other affected services include Wordle, Coinbase, Slack, Pokémon Go, Epic Games, PlayStation Network, and Peloton.
By 10:30am UK time, Amazon indicated that the issues, which began around 8am, were being addressed, as AWS showed “significant signs of recovery.” At 11 a.m., they confirmed that global services linked to US-EAST-1 had also been restored.
Amazon reported that the problems originated from Amazon Web Services on the East Coast of the U.S. AWS, which is a division providing essential web infrastructure and renting out server space, is the largest cloud computing platform worldwide.
Shortly after midnight (8am BST) in the U.S., Amazon acknowledged “increased error rates and latencies” for its AWS services in the East Coast region. This issue seems to have caused a worldwide ripple effect, as the Downdetector site logged problems from multiple continents.
Cisco’s Thousand Eyes service track internet outages reported a surge in problems on Monday morning, particularly in Virginia, where Amazon’s US-East-1 region is based, noting that AWS confirmed the start of the issues.
Leif Pilling, director of threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm Sophos, stated that the outage seems to be an IT-related issue rather than a cyberattack. The AWS Online Health Dashboard identified problems with DynamoDB, a database system facilitating data access for websites.
“During events like this, it’s natural for concerns of a cyber incident to arise,” he noted. “Given AWS’s extensive and complex footprint, any issue can trigger considerable disruption. It appears that this incident originates from an IT problem on the database side, which AWS prioritizes resolving promptly.”
Dr. Colin Cass Speth, head of digital at human rights organization Article 19, pointed out that the outage underscores the risks of concentrating digital infrastructure in the hands of a few providers.
“There is an urgent need to diversify cloud computing. The infrastructure supporting democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communication should not rely solely on a handful of companies,” she stated.
The British government reported that it was in touch with Amazon concerning the internet disruption on Monday.
A spokesperson remarked: “We are aware of an incident affecting Amazon Web Services and several online services dependent on its infrastructure. Through our established incident response structure, we are in communication and working to restore services as quickly as possible.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
