By Harshit, Seattle, October 21, 2025
A massive outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing division of the retail giant Amazon, caused widespread disruption across the internet on Monday, impacting millions of users and thousands of high-profile applications worldwide. The outage temporarily affected major websites, apps, banks, airlines, and even home smart devices, highlighting the fragility of the internet and the world’s growing reliance on cloud infrastructure.
AWS Connectivity Issues and Initial Impact
Amazon reported that its systems were mostly back online by Monday afternoon, though some services, such as AWS Lambda, continued returning errors. Lambda allows customers to write code that automatically manages the infrastructure needed to deploy it.
The root of the problem appeared to stem from the company’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) network, a virtual server platform that allows businesses to scale computing resources efficiently. A monitoring subsystem designed to track network load reportedly malfunctioned, prompting Amazon to throttle new EC2 instances as a precaution while repairs were underway.
The outage temporarily disabled access to essential services. Popular apps and websites including Snapchat, Facebook, Fortnite, and even banking platforms were affected. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and AI company Perplexity also reported interruptions, while U.S. airlines Delta and United faced operational challenges due to the disruption.
Global Scale of the Outage
Downdetector, a website that aggregates user-reported issues, recorded over 6.5 million reports of service disruptions globally in just the first few hours. In the U.S., more than 1.4 million reports were filed, with the U.K., Netherlands, Australia, France, and Japan also reporting hundreds of thousands of outages. The impact extended beyond apps, affecting smart devices such as Amazon Smart Plugs and Alexa-enabled products.
Eric, a user from the AI accounting automation platform DOKKA, reported that internal productivity tools were temporarily down, while Christina, a user relying on Alexa smart plugs for home assistance due to mobility limitations, described how her devices became unresponsive during the outage.
Financial Implications
Experts warn the financial consequences could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring firm Catchpoint, said, “The financial impact of this outage will easily reach into the hundreds of billions due to loss in productivity for millions of workers and halted business operations—from airlines to factories.”
From delayed flights to disrupted banking and e-commerce transactions, Monday’s outage underscored how deeply the global economy depends on cloud services. The event also exposed the risks of centralizing internet infrastructure in a small number of cloud regions.
Recovery Efforts and Amazon’s Response
Amazon has been actively working to restore all AWS services. By Monday afternoon, connectivity and API functionality were returning across most services, although Lambda and other products continued to see intermittent errors. The company acknowledged the problem on its health dashboard and communicated updates to affected customers in real time.
Amazon noted that recovery involved multiple parallel mitigation paths and highlighted the ongoing need to monitor the EC2 network load system. While early signs of recovery appeared promising, some users continued reporting errors, particularly in the US-EAST-1 region.
Experts Weigh In
The incident has sparked discussion about internet resilience. Rob Jardin, chief digital officer at cybersecurity firm NymVPN, said, “The internet was originally designed to be decentralized and resilient, yet today so much of our online ecosystem is concentrated in a small number of cloud regions. When one of those regions experiences a fault, the impact is immediate and widespread.”
Similarly, Lance Ulanoff, a tech analyst, highlighted that smart devices and modern workflows are increasingly dependent on constant connectivity, meaning that a single cloud outage can affect everything from home automation to business-critical applications.
Social Media Reactions
The outage drew attention from tech personalities, including Elon Musk, who tweeted about how his platform X remained unaffected while poking fun at Amazon’s downtime. Memes and commentary quickly circulated online, reflecting both frustration and the ubiquity of AWS in everyday digital life.
The incident serves as a stark reminder of the interconnectivity of modern systems and the potential risks of over-reliance on a single cloud provider. As Amazon continues its recovery efforts, the global tech ecosystem watches closely to understand the implications for both infrastructure and financial stability.