Issues affecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) have caused massive outages affecting a multitude of services, including Signal, Snapchat, Amazon, Ring, and many others.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS), an on-demand cloud computing platform, suffered a major outage that forced hundreds of apps and websites to go offline.
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Signal, Snapchat, Fortnite, Starbucks, Reddit, Coinbase, Ring, Amazon, Amazon Alexa, Apple TV, and Apple Music were down for tens of thousands of users.
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AWS identified the possible root cause of the incident, which was “related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1.”
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DNS resolution involves translating domain names, such as "www.amazon.co.uk," into machine-readable IP addresses.
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The DNS issue has supposedly been fully resolved, and “most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally.”
Live: AWS Outage
AWS services officially resolved
As of 3:53 p.m. PDT, AWS is reporting that all 142 services impacted in the outage have been resolved. The cloud service has also provided a summary of the outage on its AWS Healh Dashboard.
“By 3:01 PM, all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours,” AWS said.
Clocking the “increased error rates and latencies” that triggered the mass outages from “11:49 PM PDT on October 19 through 2:24 AM PDT on October 20,” AWS says it was able to identify the root cause less than a half hour into the calamity “as DNS resolution issues for the regional DynamoDB service endpoints” for AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region.
AWS further note that although it was able to resolve the DynamoDB DNS issue at 2:24 AM, subsequent issues arose, including in its internal subsystem of EC2 and Network Load Balancer health checks system, which required the company to temporrary throttle some operations while working in tandem to resolve all network connectivity issues.
AWS says it plans to release a post-mortem summary in detail when completed.
AWS latencies and error rates as recovery continues
In its latest update, AWS is warning customers of continuing recovery latencies, error rates, and slower response times.
“We continue to observe recovery across all AWS services, and instance launches are succeeding across multiple Availability Zones in the US-EAST-1 Regions,” Amazon said in its latest health update at 12:15 p.m. PDT.
AWS warns for intermittent function errors when making network requests to other services as the company continues to address overall connectivity issues.
Internet monitoring site Downdetector said it received over 6.5 million user reports during the nine hours+ outage of roughly 140 AWS Services.
Users' hilarious takes on the AWS outage
While companies panicked over the AWS outage, social media users took it upon themselves to create hilarious memes amongst the carnage.
Experts urge users to remain cautious following AWS outage
Threat actors are likely to exploit the AWS outage to further phishing schemes. Cybersecurity experts urge people to remain cautious of potential phishing emails and other attempts to steal their data as AWS works to fix the issue.
Insight from Cybernews' senior researcher
14:35 (GMT+1) - Cybernews senior security researcher Aras Nazarovas said, “Similar outages occur almost every year, and they can be a reminder of how extensive software supply chains have become, showing how a simple issue on a handful of Amazon Data Centers caused thousands of issues to their clients.”
1000+ companies impacted by AWS
13:33 (GMT+1) - Over 1,000 companies have been affected by this massive outage affecting AWS. Downdetector told the BBC that it received over 6.5 million reports from users across the world.
In the UK alone, there have been more than 800,000 reports compared to its usual weekly number of reports, which would usually be around 160,000.
Snapchat and Ring are still suffering
13:17 (GMT+1) - Snapchat and Ring doorbell users are still reporting outages as both services have been hit pretty hard during the AWS outage.
Over 10,000 Snapchat users have reported outages via DownDetector as well as more than 4,000 Ring doorbell users.
Banking sector also hit by AWS outage
12:39 (GMT+1) - The AWS outage has also affected the banking sector, with Bank of Scotland, Halifax, and Lloyds applications down. Impacted users are reporting issues when trying to access their internet banking and having their payments declined.
Root cause identified, fixes made
12:13 (GMT+1) - AWS has apparently identified the root cause of the issue ("related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1"). The tech giant has said that "the underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated, and most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now." However, "some requests may be throttled" while Amazon work towards a resolution.
Starbucks app and website down
12:00 (GMT+1) - Starbucks is one of the more than 500 companies affected by the AWS outage, with users starting to report issues with the coffee chain's app and website at around 10:30 (GMT), according to DownDetector - just as other services begin to come back online.
Reddit experiencing one of the worst outages ever
11:52 (GMT+1) - Reddit seems to be experiencing one of the worst outages of all time after over 11,000 users on DownDetector reported problems with the website and the app.
Ring doorbell users bamboozled
11:39 (GMT+1) - Ring doorbell users reported seeing a "failed to connect" sign when trying to connect to the live view feature, while others reported seeing a "ring error 504" message being displayed.
Thousands of Ring users reported the problem on Downdetector, with 51% experiencing server connectivity issues, 38% saying they were having problems with the app, and 11% reporting they couldn’t connect.
What services are back online?
11:35 (GMT+1) - Some users on DownDetector have reported that sites like Snapchat, Amazon, and Goodreads are back online. However, the companies haven't explicitly stated that their sites are operational.
Root cause unknown
11:11 (GMT+1) While the root cause of the incident is still unknown, AWS has said that there are still "increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region." AWS also said that while they're still investigating the root cause, the company will provide "an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if (it) has additional information to share."
65 AWS services impacted
11:00 (GMT+1) A further five AWS services (totalling 65 AWS services) are impacted by the outage including AWS Application Migration Service, AWS B2B Data Interchange, Amazon WorkSpaces, among others.
Companies impacted
A massive amount of companies have been affected by the AWS outage including Snapchat, Amazon, Amazon Alexa, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Duolingo, Roblox, Fortnite, Grammarly, and possibly hundreds more.
What we know
AWS experienced a massive outage, resulting in severe downtime for various apps and websites. The situation seems to have improved, with sites like Goodreads and Amazon returning to a normal state of use. However, many users are still experiencing outages.
Almost 50 websites and apps appear to be down, with up to 13,000 users reporting issues, according to DownDetector, a platform where users can self report website outages.
Over 13,000 Snapchat users in the US reported issues, 12,000 Roblox users reported issues, as well as 13,000 people trying to use Amazon.
PSA: we are aware that Signal is down for some people. This appears to be related to a major AWS outage. Stand by.
undefined Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) October 20, 2025
The problem seems to stem from Amazon Web Services which confirmed an “increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region.”
“We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause. We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share,” Amazon’s health status page reports.
The region that are reportedly hit hardest by the issue is the East Coast, meaning that cities like New York, Philadelphia, Miami, and Washington DC could be feeling the brunt of the outage.
AWS frequently updates it health status page and the number of affected services increased from 12 to 16 in just a few minutes.
The severity of the issue is now marked as “degraded” meaning that the system is functioning at an extremely impaired level.
The affected services include:
- AWS Config
- AWS Global Accelerator
- AWS IAM Identity Center
- AWS Identity and Access Management
- AWS Private Certificate Authority
- AWS Secrets Manager
- AWS Security Token Service
- AWS Systems Manager
- AWS VPCE PrivateLink
- Amazon CloudFront
- Amazon CloudWatch
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
- Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
- Amazon VPC Lattice
However, the number of services affected could change. Cybernews will continue to provide updates on the situation.
Update: AWS reports that a further 40 services have been disrupted and the situation has increased in severity, from "degraded" to "disrupted," meaning that the system has been severely disrupted.
Why issues with AWS are causing so many outages
While the connection between Amazon and Snapchat might not be immediately apparent, there’s a reason why so many sites and apps have been affected by the AWS outage.
This is because many apps and website that you use daily such as Snapchat, Fortnite, and massive streaming companies including Netflix and Twitch, are using Amazon’s cloud-based services to host their apps.
Many of these applications and websites are hosted on Amazon’s web services, meaning that when Amazon’s servers have issues or experience an outage, a domino effect occurs.
That’s why we’re experiencing this colossal outage.
Experts weigh in on the effects of the AWS outage
While AWS has seemingly mitigated the issue, the outage has proven to be a “disaster” for businesses running on AWS systems, according to various cybersecurity experts.
“AWS powers so many critical services that when a region falters, it means that large parts of the economy and society become vulnerable or fail,” says Rich Pleeth, chief executive and co-founder of Finmile, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm.
While Amazon is one of the biggest tech firms in the world, cybersecurity experts warn that it’s still not infallible.
“Outages like this highlight a serious issue with how some of the world’s biggest companies often rely on the same digital infrastructure, meaning that when one domino falls, they all do,” says Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN.
Some cybersecurity experts highlight that online security is more than just keeping the bad guys out of your systems.
“This is a cybersecurity issue as much as a technical one. True online security isn’t only about keeping hackers out, it’s also about ensuring you can stay connected and protected when systems fail,” Briedis says.
The AWS outage highlights a fundamental issue with the “internet's backbone,” as major players like Amazon are usually highly resilient.
“Ordinarily, the internet’s backbone and major cloud-provider ecosystems, such as AWS and Google Cloud (GCP), are highly resilient. They’re designed with significant redundancy, allowing traffic to take multiple routes to reach its destination,” says James Barnes of StatusCake, an online monitoring service.
But, in this case, companies have suffered as collateral damage as thousands of them rely on AWS services.
“Because AWS is such a major player, the ripple effects of any outage can be far-reaching. Even if a website appears to be hosted elsewhere, it may rely on services or data that sit within the affected region, meaning those downstream dependencies can still bring parts of it down,” Barnes says.
Contribution by Senior Journalist Stefanie Schappert.
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