Massive Cloud Outage Hits AWS Users Worldwide
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the backbone of much of the global internet, suffered a widespread outage on Monday, disrupting access to dozens of major apps and services including Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, Duolingo, Ring, and even PerplexityAI.
According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, more than 15,000 users across different countries reported problems accessing AWS-dependent platforms. The company later confirmed the outage, citing “increased error rates and latency” in the US-EAST-1 Region, one of its most critical data centers.
Amazon Confirms Outage, Cites Technical Error
In a statement on its official status page, Amazon acknowledged that multiple services were affected, saying engineers were “actively engaged and working to mitigate the issue and understand the root cause.”
“We can confirm increased error rates for multiple AWS services,” the company said, adding that users may face issues with case creation through the AWS Support Center or API.
AWS teams also noted that updates would be provided “within 45 minutes or sooner” as investigations continued.
Root Cause Linked to DNS Resolution Failure
In a follow-up update, Amazon revealed that it had identified a potential root cause related to DNS resolution issues impacting the DynamoDB API endpoint in the US-EAST-1 region.
“We are working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery,” the company said. “This issue also affects other AWS services such as IAM updates and Global Tables, which may be experiencing similar failures.”
The company advised users to retry failed requests, acknowledging that even as systems begin to stabilize, some latency and backlog in processing are expected.
37 AWS Services Impacted
The outage affected a staggering 37 core AWS services, disrupting critical infrastructure used by businesses and governments globally. The list includes:
AWS Batch, AWS Config, AWS Database Migration Service, AWS Deadline Cloud, AWS Elemental, AWS Global Accelerator, AWS IAM Identity Center, AWS Identity and Access Management, AWS Lambda, AWS Network Firewall, AWS Organizations, AWS Private Certificate Authority, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Security Token Service, AWS Support API, AWS Support Center, AWS Systems Manager, AWS VPCE PrivateLink, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Connect, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Elastic Container Registry, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Amazon FSx, Amazon GameLift Servers, Amazon Interactive Video Service, Amazon Kendra, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon MQ, Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka, Amazon Polly, Amazon Q Business, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Amazon VPC Lattice
The outage’s scale underscores AWS’s central role in global cloud computing infrastructure. A disruption in one region can ripple across multiple industries from gaming to finance to communication platforms.
Apps and Websites Across Sectors Affected
The effects of the outage were felt far beyond Amazon’s ecosystem. Several popular global apps and services dependent on AWS infrastructure went offline or experienced major slowdowns.
Among the affected were Snapchat, Ring, Roblox, Clash Royale, Life360, MyFitnessPal, Xero, Prime Video, Amazon Music, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, Wordle, Duolingo, Coinbase, Vodafone, PlayStation, and Pokémon Go.
The widespread nature of the disruption highlights how intertwined much of the digital world has become with Amazon’s cloud backbone.
PerplexityAI, Other Platforms Confirm Downtime
Even AI platforms felt the ripple effects. PerplexityAI CEO Aravind Srinivas confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that his company’s systems were down, stating, “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”
Other companies have issued similar statements acknowledging partial or complete downtime, with updates expected as AWS systems recover.
Early Signs of Recovery, But Intermittent Failures Continue
By Monday evening IST, AWS said it had applied initial mitigations and was “observing early signs of recovery.” However, the company warned that “requests may continue to fail as we work toward full resolution.”
Customers were advised to retry failed requests periodically as the system stabilizes. AWS added that some services may take longer to fully process backlogged requests due to the volume of impact.
Global Dependence on Cloud Under Spotlight
The outage once again raises concerns over the internet’s dependence on centralized cloud providers. With AWS powering critical systems across healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and AI, even a brief disruption has far-reaching effects on both businesses and consumers.
As of now, AWS engineers continue to restore services while monitoring for any further issues. The company is expected to release a detailed incident report once the systems are fully operational.
