
Amazon confirmed late Monday that its massive AWS outage has been fully resolved, ending a day of global internet problems that disrupted thousands of online services — from fast food apps to school platforms and crypto exchanges.
The outage, which began early Monday morning, affected Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing backbone for much of the modern internet.
AWS powers platforms for companies like Netflix, Snapchat, McDonald's, Robinhood, and even the US government.
According to AP News, it wasn't until around 6 pm Eastern time that Amazon said, "services returned to normal operations."
Amazon blamed the disruption on a problem with its domain name system (DNS), which helps computers find websites.
When DNS fails, websites and apps can't load properly, causing widespread outages.
More than 11 million outage reports were logged by monitoring site DownDetector, affecting over 2,500 major companies.
🚨 THE INTERNET JUST FACEPLANTED - AND AMAZON’S HOLDING THE CORD
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 20, 2025
Snapchat’s dead. Roblox won’t load. Canva’s crying. Even Alexa’s pretending she didn’t hear you.
It’s not you - it’s AWS, the invisible backbone of half the web, choking in its own cables.
Amazon Web Services… pic.twitter.com/liejr0OQpl
Engineers Restore AWS After Day-Long Cloud Disruption
Users saw issues with video games like Fortnite and Roblox, apps like Venmo and Coinbase, and educational platforms like Canvas — used by millions of students across North America.
Schools, including Ohio State University and the University of California, Riverside, said students couldn't access homework, quizzes, or course materials.
"I currently can't grade any online assignments, and my students can't access their materials," said Damien P. Williams, a professor at UNC Charlotte.
Amazon's own services also took a hit. People using Alexa smart speakers, Ring doorbells, and even Kindle e-books reported problems throughout the day.
Engineers worked for hours to fix issues inside AWS systems like EC2 and Lambda, which run key internet operations, Cryptopolitan reported.
By late evening, Amazon reported that new EC2 instance launches were mostly back to normal, and function errors in Lambda were dropping.
Cybersecurity experts confirmed it was not a cyberattack. "This looks like a good old-fashioned technology issue," said Bryson Bort, CEO of security firm Scythe. "Most of the time, it's human error."
The outage renewed concerns about the world's heavy reliance on just a few cloud providers. "The world now runs on the cloud," said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert in the UK. When a single provider goes down, "everything else starts to fall apart."
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