AWS outage explained: Causes, affected services, impact and recovery efforts - everything we know so far

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud computing platform, experienced a significant outage on Monday that affected millions of users and thousands of businesses worldwide. The disruption affected online services from banks, social media platforms, gaming companies and more. Cause of the outage: DNS issue and internal EC2 network failure The outage originated at AWS’s US-EAST-1 data center in northern Virginia, the provider’s oldest and largest site. According to AWS, the problem stemmed from a Domain Name System (DNS) issue that prevented applications from locating the DynamoDB API, a key cloud database used by various services. The failure was traced to the EC2 internal network, Amazon’s high-speed network that connects cloud services within its data centers. E-Commerce & Streaming: Amazon, Prime Video, Crunchyroll Gaming: Roblox, Fortnite, Clash Royale, Clash of Clans Social Media & Messaging: Snapchat, Reddit, Signal Funding & Payments: Robinhood, Venmo, Coinbase Transportation: Lyft Education & AI Tools: Duolingo, Perplexity Downdetector has over 9 300 user complaints reported in the early afternoon. extent of the disruption. Some services, like Reddit and Roblox, have largely stabilized, while others, including Snapchat, Venmo, and Duolingo, have continued to experience intermittent issues. Recovery Efforts and Current Status AWS has gradually recovered after more than nine hours of disruption. Although connectivity has improved greatly, some applications may still experience slower responses or increased error rates. Amazon has confirmed that several AWS services in the East Coast region have been affected and is continuing to monitor network health. Why it matters AWS supports a third of the global cloud market and powers critical infrastructure for businesses, governments and consumers. Outages at AWS can ripple across industries, affecting e-commerce, finance, education, AI services and entertainment worldwide. The AWS outage highlights the vulnerability of global digital infrastructure and the dependence of modern businesses on a few major cloud providers. While services are largely recovering, the incident serves as a reminder of the critical role cloud computing plays in our daily lives and the importance of resilient systems.