At around 7:40 a.m. UK time, a major outage hit Amazon Web Services (AWS), causing disruptions across a wide range of online platforms. Among those affected were Reddit, Snapchat, Alexa, Ring, and many other services that rely on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.
A sharp surge in user reports on Downdetector helped identify the source of the problem — AWS itself. The disruption affected nearly every service connected to Amazon’s servers, leading to widespread failures across websites, apps, and online tools.
As of the time of writing, most systems have been restored, but the issue created a domino effect, impacting even banks and financial systems that depend on AWS cloud services.
What happened at Amazon
Internet-scale outages like today’s AWS incident often spark fears of cyberattacks. However, this time, the cause appears to be far less dramatic — a technical infrastructure error within Amazon’s internal systems.
According to the Amazon Web Services status dashboard, the issue was “likely related to DNS resolution for the API endpoint of DynamoDB in the US-EAST-1 region.” In simpler terms, it was a communication failure between DNS servers (which translate IP addresses) and the API interface that connects clients and servers.
Expert commentary
Reif Pilling, Director of Threat Research at Sophos, noted that it’s normal for such events to raise concerns:
“When something of this scale happens, fears of a cyber incident are understandable. AWS has a massive and complex global network, so even a small technical issue can have major consequences. In this case, it appears to be a database-related problem, and the team is prioritizing its resolution.”
Recovery in progress
The situation is gradually stabilizing. The AWS status dashboard now reports that “most affected services are showing signs of recovery.” However, several platforms — including Reddit and Ring — continue to experience access and performance issues.
Experts believe it may take several more hours before all AWS systems are fully operational again. The incident underscores just how dependent much of the global internet has become on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.
Більше новин в телеграмі
