Major Internet Failure Hits Numerous Websites and Mobile Apps

An extensive internet failure has disrupted many websites and mobile apps around the world, and users noting troubles connecting to the web after problems at the web hosting system.

The affected platforms include the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as several Amazon-owned platforms including its key e-commerce website and the Ring doorbell home security firm.

Across the United Kingdom, Lloyds bank was impacted in addition to its subsidiaries Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with also reports of difficulties using the the tax authority site on the start of the week. Furthermore across the UK, several Ring users turned to social media to state their doorbells were not working.

In the UK alone, notifications of issues on particular applications reached the many thousands for each app.

Officials confirmed that the outage began in the eastern region of the US at AWS, a division that offers crucial internet framework for many companies, who rent out resources on AWS infrastructure. AWS is the biggest global online services service.

Just after late night (PDT) in the America (8 in the morning BST), the company announced “elevated failure rates and slowdowns” for Amazon's platforms in a area on the Atlantic seaboard of the US. The ripple effect appeared to hit apps worldwide, and the problem monitoring service reporting problems with the same sites in multiple continents.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a service that tracks web disruptions, further indicated a increase in problems on the start of the week, with many of them located in the Virginia area, the region of the AWS US-East-1 zone where the company stated the problems began.