⚡ Internet Chaos: Major Websites Go Dark After Amazon Web Services Outage
The digital world went dark overnight as a massive global outage disrupted some of the world’s most popular websites and apps. From Amazon and Alexa to Snapchat, Fortnite, Disney Plus, and United Airlines, millions of users were suddenly cut off from the online services they rely on every day.
The cause? A critical operational issue within Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the cloud infrastructure giant that powers much of the internet.
—
🚨 What Exactly Happened?
Around 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time, users across the globe began reporting problems accessing major platforms. The tracking site Down Detector showed a surge in outage reports from multiple countries.
Services affected included:
Amazon & Prime Video — unavailable or loading endlessly
Disney Plus and Snapchat — login and streaming errors
Fortnite and Roblox — connection failures on cloud servers
United Airlines and Delta — users couldn’t check in or view flight reservations
Even major restaurant apps like McDonald’s and ride-hailing platforms like Lyft experienced disruptions.
—
☁️ The Root Cause: AWS Cloud Failure
AWS confirmed that the disruption stemmed from an internal operational issue affecting parts of its cloud infrastructure the DNS Resolver – Route53. The company began emergency recovery procedures shortly after 2:00 a.m. ET, with early signs of recovery showing between 2:45 and 3:00 a.m.
DNS resolver is single point of failure. This service is responsible to map domain name: ie: geeksbeginner.com into IP address of the server. Your computer (browser) only can connect to an IP address.
By morning, most systems were back online — though some smaller platforms, like Angry Birds, were still struggling to reconnect as of 5:00 a.m.
—
✈️ Global Impact: Flights, Games, and Apps Go Silent
The ripple effects were immediate and widespread. Travelers took to social media to complain about inaccessible flight bookings and frozen airline check-in systems. Gamers, meanwhile, found themselves locked out of cloud-based titles like Fortnite and Roblox.
The outage revealed just how deeply interconnected today’s digital ecosystem has become — when one core cloud provider falters, entire industries can grind to a halt.
