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This is a developing story
Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant outage on Monday (October 20), affecting thousands of users across the United States and beyond. The disruption impacted a wide range of services, including popular apps, websites, and essential services, causing connectivity issues and service interruptions.
AWS identified the root cause as a DNS issue and is deploying multiple fixes to resolve the problem.
The Economic Times reported that the outage also impacted shopping carts and connected gaming services, with social media abuzz with user reports confirming the global scale of the disruption.
The New York Times noted that AWS engineers are working to limit the impact and identify the cause, with 28 services, including those in the US-EAST-1 region, experiencing issues. Companies like Coinbase, Perplexity, and Signal reported being affected by the outage.
While some improvements have been seen in the U.S., issues persist in the U.K., affecting online banking and government services.
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Apps and platforms including:
- Snapchat
- Roblox
- Fortnite
- Duolingo
- Canva
- Venmo
- Zoom
- Strava
- PlayStation Network
- Robinhood
- Perplexity AI
- McDonald's app
- Airtable
Cause and speculation
- Some viral posts suggest a cyberattack, possibly linked to China.
- However, experts and Amazon’s own status page point to a technical failure, not a geopolitical event