A significant disruption at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the powerful cloud computing provider that underpins a vast portion of the internet, caused hundreds of websites and applications to go offline for more than two hours on a recent Monday. This incident served as a stark reminder of just how delicate our global digital infrastructure truly is.
The extensive outage began shortly after 3 a.m. Eastern time, impacting a wide array of services, from major banks and popular gaming platforms to various entertainment apps. By 5:27 a.m., Amazon confirmed that most affected websites and applications were returning to normal operation, though they were still actively processing a backlog of requests.
Among the many popular services brought to a halt were messaging giant WhatsApp, key British government online resources, the payment application Venmo, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and even digital games from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal’s website. The ripple effect touched numerous other prominent companies and retailers, including Amazon’s own platforms, Hulu, Snapchat, McDonald’s, Ring smart home devices, and the hugely popular game Fortnite, all experiencing interruptions.
According to Down Detector, a service monitoring internet disruptions, over eight million reports related to Amazon Web Services had poured in by 9:45 a.m. Eastern, with a significant number originating from users in both the United States and Britain.
At 11:43 a.m., Amazon released an update stating that their preliminary investigation pointed to an internal system, responsible for balancing network traffic, as the root cause of the problems in their Northern Virginia data center.
Technology experts quickly highlighted how this incident underscores the internet’s heavy dependence on a select few major providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. When one of these critical services experiences a failure, it inevitably leads to widespread disruptions affecting millions globally. This mirrors a similar, more extensive day-long outage last year, which was triggered by a faulty software update from a cybersecurity firm.
Thousands of businesses and organizations depend on Amazon Web Services for their most complex and data-intensive operations, ranging from seamless video streaming and robust web applications to the secure storage of massive volumes of digital information.
Harry Halpin, CEO of NymVPN, a virtual private network service, suggested that Monday’s problem likely originated from a technical flaw within one of Amazon’s primary data centers. He emphasized the inherent lack of transparency in cloud platform operations, noting that without Amazon’s full disclosure, the exact cause remains speculative.
Dr. Halpin recounted waking to multiple emails from soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine, whose VPN services his company provides, questioning the cause of the disruption. He pointed out that this vulnerability extends to numerous governments worldwide, many of whom similarly depend on these critical cloud services.
“When an entire nation’s digital infrastructure is concentrated among a handful of providers, predominantly based in the United States, and any component can fail at any given time—whether due to malicious activity or simple technical glitches—it creates an incredibly perilous situation,” Dr. Halpin warned.
“Many have grown accustomed to this reliance on a few providers as the new normal,” Dr. Halpin remarked, “but it is, in fact, far from normal.”
Amro Al-Said Ahmad, a computer science lecturer at Keele University in England, noted that Amazon’s “us-east-1” region in Northern Virginia, the site of Monday’s reported issues, hosts one of its most extensive data centers. While acknowledging that “cloud computing generally functions well for daily operations,” he cautioned that even a minor error, such as a problematic software update, possesses the potential to cripple an entire system.
In the wake of the outage, which also disrupted secure communication applications like Signal and other vital digital tools, some media advocates called for an urgent need to diversify cloud computing infrastructure.
Corinne Cath-Speth, head of digital for Article 19, a free speech advocacy group, issued a statement emphasizing that “the foundational infrastructure supporting democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications must not be solely reliant on a small group of corporations.”
Interestingly, Amazon’s stock price remained largely unaffected in premarket trading following the disruption, indicating a lack of significant concern among investors. This could be due to the fact that, in the first half of the year, Amazon Web Services contributed almost 20 percent of Amazon’s total sales, yet an impressive 60 percent of its operating profit.
Amazon’s cloud computing division boasts a vast, global infrastructure. This allows clients to leverage Amazon’s services, easily scaling their operations up or down as needed, without the immense capital investment typically required for building and maintaining their own expensive hardware.
Rebecca Wright, a computer science professor at Barnard College in New York City, highlighted the benefits for smaller companies in relying on specialized cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, which offer crucial expertise. “While there are certainly trade-offs,” she noted, “I wouldn’t advise companies to avoid outsourcing their cybersecurity to firms that possess deep cybersecurity knowledge.”
Mehdi Daoudi, founder of Catchpoint, an internet performance monitoring firm, recalled that merely two decades ago, many companies operated their own data centers. Today, however, the majority depend on major cloud providers such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Chinese tech giants. He observed that in the past two to three years, the escalating costs associated with these cloud services have even led some businesses to consider returning to their in-house infrastructure solutions.
This recent outage could intensify calls for both private companies and government entities to prioritize and utilize cloud services located within their own geographic regions.
Following Monday’s disruption, Alexandra Geese, a German Member of the European Parliament, asserted that critical European data and digital infrastructure should be securely hosted within Europe, managed by European companies, and fully subject to E.U. jurisdiction.
She concluded that the incident served as a “stark reminder that Europe’s digital sovereignty is not merely an abstract concept, but a tangible necessity for security and resilience.”
Reporting for this article was also contributed by Melissa Eddy from Berlin, Jeanna Smialek from Brussels, and Andrés R. Martínez from Seoul.