A significant hiccup at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the giant cloud provider underpinning much of our online world, plunged numerous websites and applications into darkness for more than two hours on Monday. This incident served as yet another stark reminder of how fragile our global technology infrastructure truly is.
The widespread disruption, which impacted key services for major banks, popular gaming platforms, and entertainment providers, began just after 3 a.m. Eastern Time. By 5:27 a.m., Amazon announced that the majority of affected sites and apps were back online, though engineers were still diligently clearing a backlog of requests.
Among the prominent services hit were WhatsApp, the British government’s official website and its tax services, the popular payment app Venmo, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and even games hosted by The New York Times. A long list of other companies and retailers, including Amazon itself, Hulu, Snapchat, Ring doorbells, and McDonald’s, also reported service interruptions.
The exact cause of the outage remained unclear, with no immediate signs pointing to a cyberattack.
Technology experts quickly highlighted how this incident underscores the internet’s heavy dependence on a handful of major cloud providers—such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. When one of these giants falters, millions of users worldwide feel the impact. This echoes a similar, more extensive internet blackout last year, which stemmed from a flawed software update issued by a less-known cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike.
Amazon Web Services serves thousands of clients who depend on its robust infrastructure for highly complex, data-intensive tasks like video streaming, running web applications, and massive digital storage. Amazon’s cloud-computing arm has built a vast global network, enabling businesses to reach customers worldwide. This model allows clients to rapidly expand or contract their services without the immense investment in their own hardware.
Harry Halpin, CEO of NymVPN, a virtual private network provider, suggested the problem might have originated from a technical glitch within one of Amazon’s primary data centers. However, he emphasized the inherent lack of transparency in cloud platform operations, noting that without Amazon’s full disclosure, the precise cause—including the possibility of a cyberattack—remains unknown.
Halpin, whose company supplies VPN services to soldiers in Ukraine, recounted waking up to a flurry of emails from the front lines, all inquiring about the sudden disruption. He pointed out that this vulnerability isn’t limited to Ukraine; many other Western governments also depend heavily on these very same cloud services.
He warned, “If your entire nation’s infrastructure is beholden to a handful of providers, all based in the United States, and any part of it can fail at any given moment—whether due to malicious activity or simple technical error—that constitutes an exceptionally perilous scenario.”
“While many accept this reliance on a few providers as normal,” added Dr. Halpin, a former research scientist at MIT, “it is, in fact, far from normal.”
Amazon’s initial statement attributed the outage to an “operational” issue impacting several services within its Northern Virginia region. The company stated that its engineers were actively working to contain the problem and pinpoint its root cause.
Amro Al-Said Ahmad, a computer science lecturer at Keele University in England, noted that Amazon’s “us-east-1” region in Northern Virginia houses one of its most critical data centers. He explained that while cloud computing generally performs well for daily operations, even a minor mistake, such as a problematic software update, can lead to a complete system collapse.
Meanwhile, several media advocacy groups voiced concerns that the outage, which also disrupted secure communication applications like Signal and other essential digital tools, highlights how the internet’s concentration of power among a few tech giants jeopardizes free speech.
Corinne Cath-Speth, head of digital for Article 19, a free speech advocacy organization, stated, “When a single provider fails, vital services vanish alongside it.” She emphasized the urgent need for greater diversification within the cloud computing landscape.
“The very infrastructure supporting democratic dialogue, independent journalism, and secure communication must not rely solely on a handful of corporations,” she asserted.
Despite the significant disruption, Amazon’s stock price saw minimal movement in premarket trading, indicating that investors were largely unfazed by the incident. In the first half of the year, Amazon Web Services contributed nearly 20 percent to Amazon’s overall sales, yet a substantial 60 percent to its operating profit.