Amazon Web Services (AWS) said late Monday that it had restored service after a major outage that left thousands of websites and apps offline globally for much of the day.
Over 1,000 platforms — including Snapchat and banks such as Lloyds and Halifax — were affected by failures in Amazon’s US-based cloud network. Downdetector, a global outage tracker, reported more than 11 million user complaints during the incident.
Experts said the event revealed the risks of concentrating essential digital infrastructure in the hands of a few major providers.
Single technical fault impacts millions
Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey said the outage exposed the fragility of the internet. He explained that many services depend on systems outside their control. “Even minor human errors can trigger global disruption,” he said.
The outage began around 07:00 BST on Monday, as users reported difficulties accessing services like Fortnite and Duolingo.
By midday, Downdetector had logged over four million problem reports across 500 websites — double the normal weekday figure. The number later climbed above 11 million as additional platforms, including Reddit and Lloyds Bank, went offline.
By 23:00 BST, Amazon confirmed all AWS services had returned to normal after engineers throttled parts of the network to fix the root problem.
Cascading failures deepen the crisis
Mike Chapple, an IT professor at Notre Dame University, compared the outage to a regional power grid failure. He said initial restorations may have triggered further problems before engineers resolved the underlying issue. “It’s like restoring flickering lights without repairing the wiring,” he said.
Amazon has not provided a full explanation. In a brief 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 as the internet’s directory, converting website names into numerical addresses computers can read. When it fails, browsers cannot locate websites, leaving users cut off entirely.
Heavy reliance on cloud giants sparks concern
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said the outage highlighted the dangers of depending on a few large providers. “Everyone has a bad day, and today it was Amazon’s,” he said. “The cloud enables growth, but one failure can affect millions globally.”
Cori Crider, head of the Future of Technology Institute, compared the outage to “a bridge collapsing in the digital economy.” She said roughly 70% of cloud services worldwide rely on Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — a concentration she called “structurally risky.”
“When a major provider fails, entire sectors of the economy can grind to a halt,” Crider said. She urged governments and businesses to diversify cloud services and invest in local alternatives to reduce future risks.
Firms urged to strengthen digital resilience
Cornell University professor Ken Birman said companies relying on AWS share some responsibility. “Many organisations fail to build adequate backup systems for their applications,” he said. Outages occur frequently, though few reach this scale.
Birman added that the tools to create resilient and secure systems already exist. “We know how to prevent failures like this,” he said. “Yet many companies prioritise convenience over reliability.”
Legal and economic fallout expected
Questions of accountability could move to the courts. After last year’s CrowdStrike outage, Delta Airlines is still seeking more than $500 million in damages. The airline had to manually restart 40,000 servers, causing several days of flight delays.
The AWS outage has reignited concerns over whether too much of the internet depends on a handful of tech giants — and whether a single provider’s failure could once again paralyse major parts of the digital economy.
