On October 20, 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major outage that disrupted global internet services, affecting millions of users and thousands of companies across more than 60 countries. The incident originated in the US-EAST-1 region and was traced to a DNS resolution failure affecting the DynamoDB endpoint, which cascaded into outages across multiple dependent services. According to AWS's official incident report, the fault began when a DNS subsystem failed to update domain resolution records within the affected region correctly.
Last week, the privacy-focused messaging service Signal was temporarily shut down when Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major outage. This led to criticism of Signal's use of such a dominant provider as AWS.
It has become cliché to say that the cloud is the backbone of digital transformation, but cloud outages like the recent AWS incident make enterprise dependence on the cloud painfully clear. Last week's AWS outage impacted thousands of businesses worldwide, from SaaS providers to e-commerce companies. Revenue streams paused or evaporated, customer experiences soured, and brand reputations were at stake. For enterprises that suffer direct financial losses from any outage, the frustration runs deep.
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, which has disrupted leading UK banks and global services, has once again revealed the fragility of this dependence. The incident bears striking similarities to the CrowdStrike disruption seen last year, both demonstrating how a single failure in a major technology provider can cascade across industries. For instance, customers, including myself, have been unable to log into the Lloyds Banking Group app, while widespread reports confirm disruptions across Barclays, Lloyds Bank, and the Bank of Scotland.
The company's "Pod" mattress toppers - which start at $2,000 depending on the model and size, alongside a monthly Autopilot subscription (starting at $17) to use the features - rely on cloud connectivity. An active internet connection is required to control temperature and elevation settings via the Eight Sleep app, and it previously didn't provide a way to adjust features offline.
When Abby Fagerlin tried logging into Canvas, a popular educational technology platform, to check on her assignments Monday morning, she couldn't get in. That meant the 19-year-old college sophomore, who is studying physics at Pasadena City College, was unable to access materials she needed for her three classes, which were hosted on or linked through the learning management system. After searching online, she realized the Amazon Web Services outage that crippled much of the internet Monday had also temporarily taken down Canvas.
Whether basic communications using apps such as Snapchat, Signal and Reddit to airlines such as Delta and United reporting disruptions to their customer facing operations, when these services go down it highlights the reliance on just a few cloud services companies (AWS, Microsoft Azure, ANd Google Cloud) to run the country so to speak. The AWS outage has further impacted shopping websites, banking apps, and even streaming and smart homes devices.
Deep into first half stoppage time, Brentford had scored a second goal through Igor Thiago, but it was later ruled out for offside. Because of SAOT not being available at the time, the check took longer than usual, as lines had to be drawn by the video assistant referee, as used in previous seasons. Despite the lack of SAOT, the correct decision of offside was still reached.
Apps and platforms relying on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud computing service, were in a jam this morning after an hours-long outage took down a sizable chunk of the world's internet - in a striking example of how infrastructure consolidation makes the modern internet vulnerable to a failure by a single major provider. The affected platforms ranged from messaging apps like Snapchat and Signal to video games like Roblox and Fortnite, as well as financial service platforms like Venmo, Robinhood, and Chime, according to the Associated Press.
Two consolidated lawsuits are about to ramp up relating to social media platforms and the harms caused to users, especially teens, based on their designs. The litigation, which has been taking shape over several years, accuses Snap, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube of knowingly designing their platforms to addict users. [Bloomberg] The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a Second Amendment case, with the support of the Trump administration, which deals with a Texas law barring drug users including cannabis users from owning guns. [Associated Press]
"We continue to investigate the root cause for the network connectivity issues," wrote Amazon Web Services (AWS) late Monday morning. Coinbase acknowledged the impact of the AWS outage on its services. "Many online services, including Coinbase, experienced issues," a spokesperson said in a statement to Fortune. "Coinbase services have recovered. Some older asset transfer requests are still pending, which we are investigating."
U.K. banks and government tech systems going down. University students in Australia struggling to complete their coursework. Homes across Europe losing access to their Ring doorbells. While you were sleeping, large parts of the Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based internet went offline around the world. According to the AWS outage monitor, the problem stemmed from a misconfiguration of Domain Name System (DNS) resolution within the company's cloud infrastructure.
