Amazon Web Services (AWS), a leading cloud infrastructure company, reported a major outage on Monday (October 20th), paralyzing numerous major websites.

Although some websites were restored within hours, Downdetector, a failure monitoring platform, showed a surge in outage reports related to Amazon, AWS, and Alexa (Amazon's intelligent voice assistant), around noon Eastern Time.

In its latest update, released at 4:52 PM Eastern Time, Amazon stated that it is currently addressing the backlog and expects to complete it within about two hours.

In a blog post Monday afternoon, Amazon noted that AWS customers were experiencing "increased error rates" when attempting to launch new instances of its popular cloud service, EC2. "We are working as quickly as possible to restore service," the company wrote in a post.

At approximately 1:30 p.m. ET, AWS stated that it had observed "initial signs" of EC2 service restoration in some regions and was implementing repairs in the remaining regions. "Once repairs are complete, instance launch errors and network connectivity issues are expected to be alleviated."

Amazon also confirmed that the outage affected Amazon.com, some subsidiary businesses, and AWS customer support.

The outage was first reported at 3:11 a.m. ET in the US-East-1 region, AWS's primary region in Northern Virginia. A notification on the AWS status page indicated that the database service, DynamoDB, was experiencing a Domain Name System (DNS) issue. DynamoDB is a core service that powers many other AWS applications.

The Domain Name System converts website domain names into IP addresses, enabling browsers and other applications to load content.

In an update at 5:01 AM ET, AWS stated that the "operational issue" affected "multiple services" and that it was "expediting recovery efforts through multiple parallel paths." The outage affected over 70 AWS services.

At 6:35 AM ET, AWS updated its website stating that the DNS issue had been "fully resolved" and that operations across AWS services had "returned to normal."

According to Synergy Research Group, AWS is the leading company in cloud infrastructure technology, holding approximately one-third of the market share, ahead of Microsoft and Google. Millions of businesses and organizations rely on AWS for cloud computing services, such as servers and storage.

Major Affected Companies

Downdetector shows that users reported outages on platforms including Disney+, Lyft, the McDonald's app, the New York Times website, Reddit, Ring smart doorbells, Robin Hood, Snapchat, United Airlines, T-Mobile, and Venmo.

Downdetector data also showed that the UK government websites Gov.uk and HM Revenue and Customs were experiencing outages.

A government spokesperson said: "We are aware of an outage with Amazon's cloud services, which has impacted numerous online services that rely on its infrastructure. We are in communication with AWS through our established outage response procedures, and the company is working diligently to restore services as quickly as possible."

Lloyds Banking Group confirmed that some of its services were affected and asked customers to "be patient during this period," stating that work was underway to restore services. About 20 minutes later, the bank added that services were gradually being restored.

The outage also paralyzed key Amazon internal tools. Amazon warehouse employees, delivery personnel, and Flex drivers reported on Reddit that internal systems at multiple sites were offline. Some warehouse employees were told to remain in break rooms and loading docks during their shifts and were unable to access Amazon's Anytime Pay app, which allows employees to instantly access part of their wages.

Seller Central, Amazon's core platform for third-party sellers to manage their businesses, was also inaccessible due to the outage.

A Reddit spokesperson said it was "currently working to restore Reddit service to 100% normal operation."

Some United Airlines and Delta Airlines passengers reported on social media that they were unable to access their reservations, check in, or check their bags online.

A T-Mobile spokesperson said its users experienced issues accessing other websites and services due to the AWS outage, but that the carrier itself "did not experience any service interruptions or outages."

Canvas, an online learning platform, said it was also affected by "this ongoing AWS outage."

Other social media users reported outages for various cloud games, including Roblox and Fortnite; cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said many users were unable to access its service due to the outage.

Canva, a graphic design tool, said it was experiencing "a significant increase in error rates, impacting all aspects of Canva functionality. This issue stems from a critical outage in our underlying cloud service provider, AWS."

Perplexity, a generative AI search tool, was also affected. CEO Aravind Srinivas posted on the X platform: "The root cause was an AWS outage, which we are working diligently to resolve."

The Hidden Dangers of Centralized Software

This isn't the first time large enterprises have been affected by technology failures in recent years. In July 2024, a botched software upgrade by the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike exposed the vulnerability of global technology infrastructure. The glitch crippled Microsoft Windows, causing millions of dollars in disruption, grounding thousands of flights, and disrupting the normal operations of hospitals and banks.

AWS has also experienced numerous service outages in recent years. A 2023 outage knocked numerous websites offline for hours; a more severe outage in 2021 affected websites and services across multiple locations, including temporarily halting some of Amazon's own delivery operations.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have long been competing for enterprise customers. Earlier this month, after a service outage in Microsoft's Office suite, Google attempted to exploit the outage to promote its own tools and launched a business continuity plan that would run its Workspace service alongside Microsoft 365.

In a blog post last week, Google wrote: "It's only a matter of when Microsoft 365 experiences an outage (it's a matter of when and how long, not if), but that doesn't mean your team needs to revert to pen and paper."

In June, Google Cloud experienced a prolonged outage that affected several major service providers, including OpenAI and Shopify. Google said the outage was caused by a combination of recent flawed updates.

Rob Jardine, chief digital officer of the cybersecurity firm NymVPN, said in a statement that Monday's AWS outage "does not appear to be caused by a cyberattack, but more likely a technical issue at a major Amazon data center."

He added: "These types of issues typically occur when systems are overloaded or critical network components fail, and because so many websites and applications rely on AWS, the impact can spread rapidly."

When asked for comment, an Amazon spokesperson referred users to the AWS service health dashboard.

Mike Chappell, professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and a former computer scientist at the National Security Agency (NSA), said in a statement: "Most consumers may not know what DynamoDB is, but it is one of the core systems of record for the modern internet."

He added: "More details will emerge in the coming hours and days, but preliminary reports indicate that the issue was not with the database itself—the data appears to be secure. Rather, it was with the records that tell other systems where the data is stored."

"This incident reminds us how deeply the world relies on a few major cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google: when one major cloud provider sneezes, the entire internet catches a cold."