Amazon Web Services (AWS) said late Monday it had fixed a massive outage that knocked some of the world’s biggest websites offline for hours.
More than 1,000 apps and websites — including Snapchat and major banks like Lloyds and Halifax — suffered major problems after a fault hit Amazon’s US-based cloud systems. The tracking platform Downdetector reported over 11 million user complaints globally during the blackout.
Experts said the failure showed how fragile the world’s digital backbone has become, with so many companies relying on just a few cloud providers.
A day of online chaos for millions
Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey said the incident proved how interconnected the internet’s infrastructure is. He warned that many services depend on third parties for critical operations, leaving them vulnerable. “Even the biggest providers can break, and small human errors can have huge consequences,” he said.
The disruption began around 07:00 BST on Monday as users struggled to reach multiple platforms. Games like Fortnite and apps such as Duolingo were among the first to fail.
By midday, Downdetector had logged over four million reports across 500 different services — more than double the usual weekday volume. The number rose to over 11 million later in the day as sites like Reddit and Lloyds Bank joined the list of affected platforms.
By 23:00 BST, Amazon confirmed all AWS systems had returned to normal. The company said it had slowed some parts of its own network to fix the underlying issue.
Technical fault suspected to trigger chain reaction
Mike Chapple, a professor at Notre Dame University, compared the outage to a power grid collapse. He said systems might have come back online briefly before failing again. “Amazon may have fixed only the symptoms at first, not the deeper cause,” he noted.
Amazon has not yet explained the full reason behind the failure. In an update, the company said the problem appeared linked to DNS resolution in its DynamoDB API in the US-EAST-1 region.
DNS, or Domain Name System, acts like an address book for the internet, turning website names into numerical codes that computers understand. When it malfunctions, browsers can’t find websites, leaving users disconnected.
Cloud dominance sparks new warnings
Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare, said the outage exposed the immense control large cloud firms hold over the internet. “Everyone has a bad day, and today it was Amazon’s turn,” he said. “The cloud helps companies grow quickly, but a breakdown can cripple key services.”
Cori Crider, head of the Future of Technology Institute, described the outage as “a digital bridge collapse.” She said around 70% of global cloud services are controlled by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — a concentration she called “unsustainable.”
“When so much depends on just a few players, a single failure can hit the entire economy,” Crider warned. She urged governments and companies to diversify their systems and invest in smaller, regional providers.
Companies accused of weak system safeguards
Cornell University professor Ken Birman said some of the responsibility rests with businesses that use AWS. “Many firms don’t build enough backup systems into their cloud applications,” he said. Outages happen regularly, though few are this severe.
Birman explained that developers know how to design stronger systems but often fail to act. “We already have the tools to make networks more secure and reliable. The issue is commitment,” he said.
Legal and economic fallout could follow
Legal disputes may emerge over who bears responsibility for the massive disruption. After last year’s CrowdStrike incident, Delta Airlines is still fighting to recover over $500 million in damages. The airline had to restart 40,000 servers manually, causing several days of flight delays.
The AWS outage is likely to renew global discussions about the risks of relying on a handful of tech giants. Experts warn that without stronger diversification, the next major cloud failure could paralyze even more of the world’s economy.
