Major Web Disruption Hits Many Sites and Mobile Apps

A large-scale web failure has affected dozens sites and mobile apps worldwide, and users reporting troubles getting online due to difficulties at the online infrastructure system.

The affected platforms include Snapchat, the gaming platform Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and Duolingo, as well as a host of Amazon-managed services such as its key e-commerce website and the Ring device manufacturer.

Across the United Kingdom, Lloyds bank was disrupted as well as its branches Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with also reports of difficulties using the HMRC online portal on that morning. Also in the UK, several Ring customers used online platforms to complain their home gadgets were malfunctioning.

Just within Britain, reports of issues on specific applications reached the many thousands for each app.

Officials confirmed that the problem began in the east coast of the United States at the cloud division, a unit that supplies crucial online backbone for numerous businesses, who lease space on the company's servers. The cloud platform is the world’s largest cloud computing platform.

Just after late night (PDT) in the United States (8am BST), Amazon confirmed “elevated problem frequencies and slowdowns” for the cloud services in a region on the east coast of the America. The ripple effect was seen to disrupt apps globally, with the Downdetector site indicating outages with the corresponding services in different parts of the world.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that reports on online failures, additionally noted a surge in outages on the start of the week, and numerous instances situated in Virginia, the location of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where officials confirmed the outage started.