Amazon identifies the issue that broke much of the internet, says AWS is back to normal

On Monday, a significant outage struck Amazon Web Services (AWS), leading to widespread disruption across numerous websites, financial institutions, and various government services. By Monday afternoon, the tech giant provided insights into the problem and reassured users that efforts were underway to restore operations. By 6:01 p.m. ET, Amazon announced that all AWS services had resumed normal functionality. The company revealed that the root of the issue was linked to DNS (Domain Name System) resolution, which is essential for translating web addresses into IP addresses, allowing applications and websites to load properly. While some technical glitches can be remedied swiftly, DNS-related problems can sometimes require more time to resolve. According to Amazon's statement, AWS experienced elevated error rates across multiple services due to DNS resolution issues affecting the DynamoDB API endpoints within the Northern Virginia (us-east-1) region. The DNS complications were completely addressed by 2:24 AM PDT. Although the issue was rectified, Amazon indicated that additional time was necessary to "fully restore service," which they were working to complete as quickly as possible. This outage impacted not only Amazon.com and its subsidiaries but also AWS customer support operations. By Monday evening, the company confirmed that the outage was "fully mitigated," and most services were gradually returning to normal after several hours of widespread internet inaccessibility. A number of popular applications experienced outages, including Coinbase, Fortnite, Signal, Perplexity, Venmo, and Zoom, along with Amazon’s own services like Ring video surveillance. The disruption even extended to Eight Sleep's cooling pods, affecting users' sleep. AWS is a critical infrastructure provider for millions of companies and organizations worldwide, boasting data centers across the globe and commanding approximately 30% of the overall cloud market. The last notable global internet outage occurred in 2024, instigated by a flawed update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which caused widespread computer crashes and significant service interruptions. Previous incidents include a malfunction at DNS provider Akamai in 2021 that took several major websites offline for hours. For further updates on the situation and detailed information, Amazon has directed customers to consult the AWS Health Dashboard.