A big internet outage affected many popular websites and apps. Users could not log in or use these services for several hours. The problem came from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Many services rely on central tools for data management, one of which is Amazon’s DynamoDB database. Recently, this database experienced errors in AWS’s primary hub located in northern Virginia, known as US-EAST-1.
The problem was related to DNS resolution, which is how systems locate the database address. As a result, the failure affected multiple services that depended on the database, causing them to slow down or crash. The outage impacted a wide range of applications and websites. Here are some of the key ones:
- Snapchat: Early login issues.
- Fortnite: The Gaming platform went down.
- Roblox: Gaming problems.
- Duolingo: Service disruptions.
- Perplexity: Blamed AWS directly.
- Venmo: Payment connectivity troubles.
- Robinhood: Trading app glitches.
- Slack: Workplace chat problems.
- Signal: Messaging issues.
- HM Revenue & Customs (UK): Government site access denied.
- UK banks (Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland): Interruptions.
- Ring: Smart doorbell outages.
- Wordle: Word game trouble.
- Other apps: Canva, Whatnot, Rainbow Six Siege, Life360, McDonald’s App.
- AWS services: DynamoDB, Lambda, EC2, CloudFront, S3, API Gateway, IAM Identity Centre, SQS, and Amazon Kinesis Data Streams.
Downdetector showed huge spikes in user reports. People tried to use the services but failed. Security teams found no cyberattack. It was a technical fault in Amazon’s cloud. AWS said it had “higher error rates and delays.” The cause was DNS issues for DynamoDB in US-EAST-1.
Amazon's cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage, causing connectivity issues for many companies around the world and disrupting services for several popular websites and apps https://t.co/YoMiX1aigv pic.twitter.com/eqafr4pJpg
— Reuters (@Reuters) October 20, 2025Engineers rerouted traffic and cleared backlogs. Within hours, services came back online. Apps and websites started working again as AWS systems recovered.
Read: Amazon to Pay $2.5B in FTC Settlement Over Prime Subscription Practices
This outage shows how much we rely on a few cloud providers. A single problem can affect many unrelated services. It disrupts shopping, work, forms, and social feeds. Businesses lose sales and miss messages. For users, it blocks key services like banking. Regulators watch closely when banks and public services are hit.
