Image Credentials: Image Title: Massive Amazon Web Services Outage Disrupts Major Websites Worldwide Source: (Gemini) Date: October 2025. Attribution: This image was created using AI-generated imagery (Gemini) and does not depict a real-world scene.
Elliot Hayes | Senior Editor with Agencies
A major outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) has caused widespread internet disruption, knocking out access to some of the world’s most popular websites and apps, including Snapchat, Reddit, Canva, Fortnite, Roblox, Duolingo, and even several banks and government portals.
The outage began around 8 a.m. UK time (midnight Pacific) and quickly spread, affecting users across multiple continents. According to Down Detector, an online outage-tracking platform, reports of failures spiked dramatically throughout the morning, with many users still facing difficulties hours later.
Someone said GLOBAL AWS OUTAGE? Because it seems like everything is down.
Major AWS outage disrupts several services like Amazon, Alexa, Snapchat, Fortnite, Perplexity, Airtable, MyFitnessPal, Canva, and McDonald's app due to high error rates and latencies. AWS is investigating;… pic.twitter.com/RbYXGUGENe
— Hackmanac (@H4ckmanac) October 20, 2025
AWS Identified as the Source of the Problem
The disruptions have been traced to AWS’s US-EAST-1 region, a key hub for Amazon’s global cloud infrastructure. This region hosts a large number of servers used by major companies to run their websites, apps, and digital services.
An update on Amazon’s service status page confirmed “significant API errors and connectivity issues across multiple services.” While Amazon reported that the underlying issue — related to DNS (Domain Name System) failures — has been “fully mitigated,” some services continue to experience slow recovery and lingering technical issues.
Global Impact Highlights Internet Fragility
The scale of the outage exposed how much of the modern web relies on a handful of large cloud providers. AWS, which earned $108 billion in revenue last year, powers everything from small startups to global corporations. As such, even minor technical failures in its infrastructure can have a domino effect, disrupting online operations worldwide.
“This outage underscores a stark reality,” said Rimesh Patel, a cybersecurity expert. “When one critical vendor experiences a problem, the impact cascades globally. What began as a small service interruption has turned into a disruption affecting millions of users and key systems.”
Ongoing Issues and Expert Analysis
By mid-afternoon, some services such as Reddit reported partial recovery, while others, including Snapchat and Fortnite, continued to experience problems. EA’s gaming app also went offline, leaving players unable to access new titles like Battlefield 6.
Experts warned that even after Amazon’s internal fix, residual problems could persist for hours. Graeme Bragg, a computer networking expert at the University of Southampton, explained:
“The root cause was a DNS failure. While the problem has been addressed, it will take time for all systems across the internet to fully synchronize. Additionally, Amazon’s servers are still processing a large backlog of requests.”
A Wake-Up Call on Centralization
The outage reignited concerns about the centralization of internet infrastructure. Critics argue that too much of the web depends on a few companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
“The internet was designed to be decentralized and resilient,” wrote Chris Stokel-Walker, a technology journalist. “Yet today, a few corporations effectively hold the keys to the online world. This outage shows just how fragile that system can be.”
As Amazon engineers continue working toward full restoration, users are being advised to clear DNS caches and retry connections periodically. However, experts caution that full normalization may take the rest of the day.
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