A huge internet outage has hit dozens of websites with banks, phone companies and major retailers among those affected.
Downdetector reported a massive spike in reports about service issues involving a host of sites on Monday morning.
The Amazon Web Services outage disrupted the likes of Lloyds Bank, Snapchat, Zoom, Roblox, HMRC and Fortnight.
You can view a fuller list of affected websites and apps here.
Follow the latest developments below...
Coverage ends
20:58 , Matt WattsOur coverage of today’s disruption from the AWS internet outage has ended for the day. Thanks for joining us.
Amazon says recovery continues but problems persist
20:57 , Matt WattsIn Amazon’s latest update, they say they continue to see signs of recovery across all AWS services.
But problems persist with its Lambda service, which computer science experts say helps ensure your cell phone, computer, or television can run apps from the cloud.
Amazon says users might see error messages when they try to run these outside services.
Concerns among MPs that 'key parts of our IT infrastructure hosted abroad'
20:16 , Matt WattsThe Treasury Committee has queried why Amazon has not been added to a critical third parties regime after disruption at Amazon Web Services led to website outages.
In a letter to Lucy Rigby MP, the economic secretary to the Treasury, the committee of MPs set out a series of questions linked to the outages.
They asked why the Treasury has not designated Amazon Web Services, or any other major technology firm, as a critical third party under a regime established in November of last year.
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier also cited speculation that the AWS outage related to its US operations and asked if the Treasury was concerned that “seemingly key parts of our IT infrastructure are hosted abroad”?
The committee also asked what work the Treasury is doing with HMRC, which it said may have been affected by the outages, to look at what went wrong and how to prevent such incidents in future.
Underlying issued 'fixed' but users still have issues
20:13 , Matt WattsThough Amazon Web Services (AWS) has said it has fixed the underlying issue that has disrupted numerous apps and websites today, some users are still reporting issues.
Downdetector now says users have been reporting issues with Grok, Lyft, Claude AI, Hulu and Reddit in updates posted on its X account.
It's unclear if the recent issues are related to the AWS outage.
Could people take legal action over disruption?
18:46 , Matt WattsA London lawyer has given an insight into whether people could take legal action for any disruption they have suffered in today’s outage.
Henna Elahi, a senior associate at Grosvenor Law in London, told the BBC that whether money can be recovered will depend on "several factors", including the contracts between the various parties and the severity of the outage.
Banking apps are among those that saw thousands of reports of issues.
Users being unable to make payments could have meant customers failed to complete purchases and breached contracts of their own.
"This may very well lead to customer complaints and attempts to recover any loss caused by the outage from the business," Ms Elahi said.
Outage problems persist
17:20 , Matt WattsAmazon’s service status page was updated again to suggest the problem night not be entirely fixed.
“We can confirm significant API errors and connectivity issues across multiple services in the US-EAST-1 Region,” a message read. “We are investigating and will provide further update in 30 minutes or soon if we have additional information.”
Amazon continues to investigate 'root cause' of problem
16:44 , Alastair LockhartAmazon has said it is still investigating the underlying problem for today’s network issues.
The firm believes the issue stemmed from the EC2 network, which creates virtual servers for AWS customers.
The company said: “We continue to investigate the root cause for the network connectivity issues that are impacting AWS services such as DynamoDB, SQS, and Amazon Connect in the US-EAST-1 Region.
“We have identified that the issue originated from within the EC2 internal network. We continue to investigate and identify mitigations.”
MPs question why AWS not labelled 'critical'
16:36 , Alastair LockhartThe Treasury Committee has queried why Amazon has not been added to a critical third parties regime after disruption at Amazon Web Services led to website outages.
In a letter to Lucy Rigby MP, the economic secretary to the Treasury, the committee of MPs set out a series of questions linked to the outages.
They asked why the Treasury has not designated Amazon Web Services, or any other major technology firm, as a critical third party under a regime established in November of last year.
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier also cited speculation that the AWS outage related to its US operations and asked if the Treasury was concerned that "seemingly key parts of our IT infrastructure are hosted abroad"?
The committee also asked what work the Treasury is doing with HMRC, which it said may have been affected by the outages, to look at what went wrong and how to prevent such incidents in future.
Sharp spike in issues with web services
16:16 , Alastair LockhartAfter Amazon reported an increase in outages, issues on a number of websites and apps have spiked again.
The outage monitor Downdetector is reporting thousands of issues reported with apps including Duolingo, the Starbucks app and Zoom.
Reports of tech problems by users with these and other web services are almost at the level they were at the height of the AWS problem at around 9am today.
Outages are increasing once again
15:52 , Nuray BulbulAmazon is currently reporting “significant” errors affecting certain services.
Most of the problems seem to be affecting users in the US this time.
Thousands have reported issues with services including Venmo, Fetch, and Instacart.
In the UK, not everything is running smoothly either—some problems persist on Pinterest’s app, while Duolingo appears offline and says it is undergoing a “maintenance break.”
Today's severe outage in Virginia
15:42 , Nuray BulbulToday’s outage originated in Amazon’s US-EAST-1 region in Virginia on the US East Coast.
This region is Amazon’s original and largest hub for web services, containing numerous data centres.
Many recognize it as a key part of the global internet and it serves as the default region for a large number of users.
However, due to its age, scale, and high on-demand capacity, it is susceptible to outages.
The incident also underscores the risks businesses face when relying heavily on a single cloud region from one provider.
Outages continue hours later
15:32 , Nuray BulbulReports of the outages first appeared at 08:00 BST. While “lots has been done,” some issues are still ongoing.
Many sites and services are now functioning correctly, although reports of problems continue for a few.
In its latest update, Amazon said it has “applied multiple mitigations” but continues to see errors “for new EC2 instance launches.”
This essentially means the virtual computers mentioned earlier still aren’t fully operational.
However, the primary issue that disrupted so many apps and services today has now been resolved.
Ring doorbell reports decrease significantly on Downdetector
15:14 , Nuray BulbulOutage reports on Downdetector from Ring doorbell users have dropped significantly but there are still 329 reports as of writing.
UK banks are beginning to recover
15:02 , Nuray BulbulThis morning, UK high street banks including Halifax, Bank of Scotland, and Lloyds Bank experienced disruptions.
All three, which belong to Lloyds Banking Group, have confirmed that their services are gradually returning to normal.
AWS also released a statement saying that although the problem causing the outage has been resolved, some services may still experience issues as they are restored.
Some NHS services were briefly impacted by today's outage
14:50 , Nuray BulbulReports indicate that some NHS services were affected by this morning’s outage, though any disruptions appear to have been limited.
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust noted a brief period during which its clinical systems went offline. The trust, which operates Central Middlesex, Northwick Park, and Ealing Hospitals, confirmed that patient care continued and all systems are now fully operational.
NHS England stated that, on a national level, it is not aware of widespread system disruptions, as its data is stored on UK-based servers rather than overseas.
Snapchat users say they lost their friends on the app
14:30 , Nuray BulbulSome users report that Snapchat is back online, though they’ve lost all their friends on the app.
As previously reported, Snapchat was one of the platforms affected by problems earlier this morning.
In an earlier statement, the company said: "We’re aware that some Snapchatters are experiencing issues with the app right now – hang tight, we’re looking into it!"
Reports surged to over 800,000
14:10 , Nuray BulbulAccording to Downdetector, reports from UK users had surged to over 800,000 by 12:30 BST — more than double the usual figure of around 160,000 reports typically recorded on an average weekday.
Have DWP and HMRC payments been impacted?
13:50 , Nuray BulbulThis morning, numerous users have reported problems accessing HMRC services, with outage-tracking site Down Detector recording nearly 800 reports. The inability to reach the tax authority’s online portal could cause challenges for those needing to pay taxes, particularly business owners.
Meanwhile, the DWP has not indicated any issues yet, though its hosting operations rely entirely on AWS’s hybrid cloud services. Individuals awaiting benefit payments are advised to monitor official updates from the department and contact its helpline if payments are delayed.
Similar outage happened in 2024
13:34 , Nuray BulbulIn July 2024, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike experienced a massive global IT outage that disrupted hospitals, airlines, banks, and government agencies.
This event mirrors the recent AWS outage, highlighting how issues with a single technology provider can have worldwide consequences.
Was this a cyber attack?
13:23 , Nuray BulbulWhen a major outage like this occurs, it’s natural to suspect a cyber attack might be behind it. Security specialists have long cautioned that the systems supporting the internet—and, by extension, much of modern life—may be more vulnerable than we think, potentially leaving them open to disruption by hackers.
There’s no evidence to suggest that this incident was a cyber attack.
Amazon still working towards full recovery
13:11 , Nuray BulbulAmazon stated that it’s still in the process of fully recovering, so it’s understandable that some users may continue to experience issues with certain apps.
HMRC lines busy as a result of outage
13:04 , Nuray BulbulHMRC says its phone lines are still busy and advises people to call back later for any non-urgent matters.
Reddit has now fixed its issue
12:53 , Nuray BulbulA post on Reddit’s status page notes that any outage on the platform has now been resolved.
Elon Musk doesn't 'trust Signal anymore'
12:48 , Nuray BulbulI don’t trust Signal anymore https://t.co/QBbwf8018S
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2025
Several more services on the rise
12:37 , Nuray BulbulApple Music is seeing an uptick in outage reports, with more than 250 logged so far, though the situation isn’t as severe as for other services — Ring, for example, continues to experience rising issues.
Zoom is also showing a renewed spike in reports on Downdetector.
While not everything is fully resolved yet, Amazon has confirmed that AWS services are gradually returning to normal.
Ring still experiencing heavy outages
12:22 , Nuray BulbulWhile some platforms, such as Reddit, are beginning to recover, reports of issues with Ring are increasing — reaching 2,641 at the time of writing. It’s hoped that number will soon decline, as has been the case with many other services.
Lloyds Bank issues statement
12:14 , Nuray BulbulLloyds Bank revealed in its latest statement: “Issues with Amazon Web Services are affecting some of our services right now.
“We’re sorry about this and ask customers to bear with us while we work to bring all our services back online as soon as possible.”
Outage caused queues at New York
12:04 , Nuray BulbulIn the United States, long lines formed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport as check-in kiosks malfunctioned and apps went offline, according to online reports.
Amazon says the root issue has been resolved
11:53 , Nuray BulbulAmazon Web Services says the underlying problem is fixed, and most services have returned to normal.
However, the system still has a backlog to process.
The issue stemmed from a problem with companies connecting to data services at AWS’s Northern Virginia data centers, affecting a wide range of businesses.
Due to the scale of the outage, some connection requests may be "throttled" while the backlog is cleared, meaning they could be slower than usual.
There are ongoing issues with the EC2 service, or Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, which AWS is working to resolve.
The company advised anyone still experiencing problems with DynamoDB to "flush their DNS caches," which will refresh the connection.
UK Government working with AWS to resolve the outage
11:44 , Nuray BulbulThe UK government confirmed it is aware of “an incident affecting Amazon Web Services and several online services which rely on their infrastructure.”
A spokesperson added: “Through our established incident response arrangements, we are in contact with the company, who are working to restore services as quickly as possible.”
Online services have returned back to normal HMRC says
11:35 , Nuray BulbulAn HMRC spokesperson said: “Customers can access our online services as normal, as the global issue which affected Amazon Web Services has now been resolved.
“We thank customers for their patience while the problem was being resolved."
Google services still running smoothly
11:31 , Nuray BulbulGoogle services, which operate on the company’s own cloud platform, appear to be functioning normally.
Many companies may also use multiple cloud providers or backup systems to ensure continuity if one platform experiences issues.
Recovery still taking place says Amazon
11:23 , Nuray BulbulAmazon Web Services reports that it is still seeing “recovery across most of the affected AWS Services.”
The company adds that global services and features dependent on the affected region have also been restored.
The disruption stems from its data centre in Northern Virginia, which AWS refers to as “US-EAST-1.”
“We continue to work towards full resolution and will provide updates as we have more information to share,” the company said.
HMRC says call later if it's not urgent
11:13 , Nuray BulbulIn a statement a spokesperson for HMRC said: “We're aware that customers are having problems accessing our online services, as part of global issues affecting Amazon Web Services. We're working urgently with them on this matter.
“Our phonelines are currently busy as a result, so for anything that isn't urgent we recommend calling at a later time.”
X not impacted by the outage shares Elon Musk
11:06 , Nuray BulbulElon Musk’s shares a smug update in his latest tweet.
𝕏 works
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2025
AWS "seeing significant signs of recovery"
11:01 , Nuray BulbulIn its most recent updates, Amazon Web Services reported that its engineers have applied "initial mitigations" and are now “seeing significant signs of recovery.”
“Most requests should now be succeeding,” the company said, though it is still working through a “backlog” of requests.
Meanwhile, the number of complaints on Downdetector is also beginning to decline.
A longer list of services impacted by the outage
10:58 , Nuray BulbulA list of all the services impacted by the outage in alphabetical order:
Amazon, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Web Services, Ancestry, Asana, Atlassian, Bank of Scotland, Blink Security, BT, Canva, Clash Of Clans, Clash Royale, Coinbase, Dead By Daylight, Duolingo, EE, Epic Games Store, Eventbrite, Flickr, Fortnite, Halifax, Hay Day, HMRC, IMDB, Jira, Life360, Lloyds Bank, My Fitness Pal, Peloton, Perplexity AI, Playstation Network, Pokemon Go, Ring, Roblox, Rocket League, Signal, Sky, Slack, Smartsheet, Snapchat, Square, Tidal, Whatsapp, Wordle, Xero, Zoom.
Find out more here.
Coinbase says not to worry and that 'funds are safe'
10:27 , Nuray BulbulCoinbase has told customers on X: “Our team is working on the issue and we'll provide updates here.”
We're aware many users are currently unable to access Coinbase due to an AWS outage.
— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) October 20, 2025
Our team is working on the issue and we'll provide updates here. All funds are safe.
Potential root cause revealed
10:11 , Nuray BulbulAWS stated that it has “identified a potential root cause” of the issues behind this morning’s widespread internet outage.
“Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1,” the company said in an update.
DNS resolution refers to the process that lets companies connect to its servers.
AWS added that it is pursuing “multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery.”
Full statement by AWS
10:07 , Nuray BulbulHere’s the full statement on Amazon’s service status page:
“We can confirm significant error rates for requests made to the DynamoDB endpoint in the US-EAST-1 Region.
“This issue also affects other AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region as well. During this time, customers may be unable to create or update Support Cases.
“Engineers were immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue, and fully understanding the root cause.
“The update said its Amazon DynamoDB database service had been "disrupted" and 20 other services had been “impacted” including Amazon CloudFront, AWS Config and AWS Security Token Service.”
Let's break down Amazon Web Services
10:02 , Nuray BulbulThere may be a few of you that might have never heard of Amazon Web Services (AWS) before.
AWS is a cloud computing platform provided by Amazon.
In simple terms, it lets individuals, startups, and large companies rent computing power, storage, and other IT resources over the internet instead of owning and maintaining physical servers and data centres.
Issues with Ring doorbells
09:55 , Nuray BulbulA significant number of users have reported experiencing problems with Ring doorbells.
When were problems first reported?
09:49 , Nuray BulbulProblems were first reported around 7am.
Downdetector reports a sharp increase in issues with Amazon Web Services over the past hour, with over 3,747 problems submitted.
Which banks are impacted by the outage?
09:48 , Nuray BulbulBanks are among the online services impacted by the widespread outage.
Users are reporting issues at:
- Lloyds Bank
- Halifax
- Bank of Scotland
Amazon gives update
09:47 , Nuray BulbulAmazon’s service status page confirms that the company is experiencing issues at its North Virginia facilities.
The problems are impacting Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, services that provide businesses with rented storage and computing power.
Downdetector is reporting a massive spike in reports
09:47 , Nuray BulbulDowndetector, a website that tracks complaints about websites and web services not working currently has a long list of services facing problems.
Here’s the list:
Snapchat, Ring, Roblox, Clash Royale, Life360, My Fitness Pal, Xero, Canva, Amazon, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Music, Prime Video, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, Wordle, Duolingo, Coinbase, HMRC, Vodafone, Playstation, Pokémon Go.
