AMAZON WEB SERVICE (AWS) ARE RECOVERING AGAIN AFTER GLOBAL INTERNET OUTAGE

The massive disruption caused by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage on October 20, 2025 — what happened, who was impacted (including Fortnite and Snapchat), what caused it (so far), and why this matter holds broader significance

On Monday 20 October 2025, AWS reported “increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region”.
The outage began early for many users (in the U.S. around 2:40 a.m ET / 7:40 a.m BST) according to timeline reconstructions.
Many popular services and apps went down (or severely degraded). Some major examples: Snapchat, Fortnite, Roblox, Duolingo, Ring, Amazon’s own retail site and Alexa, banking apps, etc.
AWS later said that the “underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated” and that most operations were returning to normal, though elevated error rates persisted for some time.
The region most impacted: US-EAST-1 (Northern Virginia), one of AWS’s key hubs.

Fortnite: One of the high-profile games affected — players reported inability to connect, log in, or enter matches because AWS-hosted services that underpin matchmaking/authentication were unavailable.
Snapchat: The social-media app also went down or experienced degraded performance; users reported “too many requests” or inability to send/receive snaps.
A range of other apps: Roblox, Duolingo, Ring (smart home devices), streaming or retail sites (including Amazon’s own), and financial/banking apps in multiple countries.

Banking and financial services: For example, UK banks such as Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, and HM Revenue & Customs’ website reported issues.
Companies whose digital operations rely on AWS found that even if they weren’t down entirely, performance and latency suffered — delayed transactions, backups, API errors etc.
The magnitude: Reports suggest thousands of companies were impacted, and millions of user-outage reports globally.

AWS indicated the root cause stemmed from its internal subsystem monitoring network load-balancers, plus a DNS (Domain Name System) issue in the US-EAST-1 region.
One report says a “potential root cause” was identified related to its DynamoDB endpoint in US-EAST-1.
AWS said that although the main issue was mitigated, “some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution”.
Importantly: there was no indication this was a cyberattack.

Centralised fragility: This outage is a sharp reminder of how much of the internet depends on a small number of cloud-providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud). When one of these stumbles, the effects ripple globally.
Supply-chain risk for digital businesses: Even businesses that aren’t primarily “tech companies” (retailers, banks, smart devices) rely on cloud infrastructure. This incident shows how digital “chokepoints” affect everything from doorbells (Ring) to trading apps.
Risk of cascading business impact: Beyond just apps being inaccessible, operational disruption (data delays, failed transactions, customer service problems) can lead to erosion of trust, financial loss, reputational damage. Some firms may face charge-backs or compensation issues.
Resilience and redundancy become strategic: Companies may rethink their architectures: multi-cloud, geo-redundant systems, better disaster-recovery planning.
Regulatory implications: In some countries, regulators may examine whether major cloud providers should be treated as “critical infrastructure” given their outsized role. For example, in the UK the Treasury Committee reportedly is considering oversight of AWS.

AWS says the primary issue has been mitigated, and that recovery is underway.
That said, some services continue to experience elevated error rates or cascading effects of the backlog.
Companies impacted will likely be conducting post-mortems: assessing how much downtime cost them, how customer trust was affected, whether their fallback systems kicked in, etc.
The broader tech community will watch for AWS’s full root-cause disclosure, and for any follow-on regulatory or industry change around cloud dependency.

For users: If an app goes offline, it may be the underlying cloud service—not necessarily your device or the app alone. Be patient and check status pages.
For businesses: Don’t assume “always-on” because you’re using a major cloud provider. Design with failure in mind. Confirm your provider’s Incident Response and compensation policies.
For everyone: Recognise that our digital ecosystem — apps, banking, home-devices, even emergency services in some cases — is deeply interlinked and reliant on a few infrastructure providers. Redundancy isn’t optional; it’s essential.