Nternet outage latest: websites and apps affected

Are you affected? Get in touch

By Rowland Manthorpe, technology correspondent

Amazon is the cloud provider for so many companies that when it sneezes, the internet catches a cold.

Despite the name, the cloud is really just a collection of data centres - that is, a collection of computers stored in warehouses. 

The problem here is apparently a DNS issue related to Amazon's data centres in North Virginia.

DNS is the address book for the internet so this means that Amazon has a connection problem. 

The data centre itself might be fine, but all those apps and websites can't find it. 

It's like a postman trying to post a letter when the address has rubbed off. 

The fact that this is happening in Amazon's largest data centre complex makes the ripples even bigger.

For various reasons - cheap electricity, proximity to Washington DC, access to undersea cables - North Virginia has become a global centre for cloud storage, so an issue there has the capacity to affect anyone who depends on the internet.

These days, as we're seeing, that's almost everyone.

The UK government has said it is aware of "an incident affecting Amazon Web Services and several online services which rely on their infrastructure".

A spokesperson said: "Through our established incident response arrangements, we are in contact with the company, who are working to restore services as quickly as possible."

It comes after Amazon Web Services said in a statement that most affected areas have been "recovered" (see previous post).

Amazon Web Services says it is still seeing "recovery across most of the affected AWS Services".

It says global services and features that rely on the affected area of its business have also recovered. 

The problems are coming from its data centre in Northern Virginia, an area referred to as "US-EAST-1" by the company.

"We continue to work towards full resolution and will provide updates as we have more information to share," it says.

US media is reporting the outage is affecting airline travel.

Queues at LaGuardia airport in New York were long at check-in desks as the kiosks appeared to be failing and apps were down, according to The New York Times. 

Some reservations weren't showing up on airline apps, and customers complained on social media that they couldn't drop their bags, CNBC reported. 

The United Airlines' website was among the sites that users reported issues with on Downdetector, which tracks internet outages. 

After Amazon Web Services reported "significant signs of recovery" (see our post at 10.28), data shows a drop-off in the number of issues being logged.

According to Downdetector, the spike that appeared after users rushed to the website to report issues earlier this morning has now started to dip.

It means people are not reporting as many issues with apps such as Snapchat, Lloyds Bank and Ring, as pictured below.

Today's outage is a reminder that the digital world "doesn't stop at borders", the head of enterprise at cybersecurity firm CheckPoint says.

"A local fault can ripple worldwide in minutes," Charlotte Wilson says.

"We've built convenience on shared systems, but resilience still depends on people and process."

Wilson says individuals should be keeping good back-ups, saving key information offline and knowing alternative ways to connect or pay if systems fail.

"Stay alert for scams or phishing attempts - especially when banking sites are down - and never click links or share details you don’t recognise," she adds.

Warning to businesses

Wilson also urges organisations to diversify, saying "don't keep everything in one cloud".

"Test your failovers, train your teams and plan for downtime before it arrives," she says.

"When companies rush to restore access, systems and staff are stretched thin - and that's when attackers strike. 

"Expect a spike in fake 'refund' or 'discount' offers, phishing emails, and scam links claiming to fix the problem."

Wilson warns that it's not just businesses at risk, with many of the affected platforms being games and apps used by children.

"Because the internet may be global, but resilience starts local - with what each of us does next," she says.

Whether you're trying to learn a new language or you're looking to do some morning brain training, users are running into error messages on popular apps this morning.

As you can see below, a grey box appears at the top of the page on Duolingo saying "maintenance break".

There's also an error message if you're trying to find your friends on Snapchat.

Lloyds banking customers have been logged out of the app, and are told "we're having a few technical problems".

If you're loading up Wordle, you'll see a message that says "something went wrong, please try again later".

Some of you have questioned this morning whether our reliance on technology is too great...

I would’ve been unable to pay for food shopping this morning if by sheer luck I didn’t have enough cash on me. Funny how they want to get rid of cash, but it’s still the backup for when technology fails.
Patrick

How do they expect the public to have digital ID when they can't even keep the systems up and running. We are not safe.
System is a joke

Remember, you can get into contact with us using the box at the top of this page.

Here's a full list of what has been affected by the internet outage, according to Downdetector:

Amazon, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Web Services, Ancestry, Asana, Atlassian, Bank of Scotland, Blink Security, BT, Canva, Clash Of Clans, Clash Royale, Coinbase, Dead By Daylight, Duolingo, EE, Epic Games Store, Eventbrite, Flickr, Fortnite, Halifax, Hay Day, HMRC, IMDB, Jira, Life360, Lloyds Bank, My Fitness Pal, Peloton, Perplexity AI, Playstation Network, Pokemon Go, Ring, Roblox, Rocket League, Signal, Sky, Slack, Smartsheet, Snapchat, Square, Tidal, Whatsapp, Wordle, Xero, Zoom...

In its latest updates, Amazon Web Services says its engineers applied "initial mitigations" and are now "seeing significant signs of recovery".

"Most requests should now be succeeding," the company says, although it is working through a "backlog" of requests.

The number of complaints on Downdetector are also dropping off.