Major Outage Hits Snapchat, Prime Video, and Fortnite on AWS

A significant outage impacted several popular platforms, including Snapchat, Prime Video, and Fortnite, on Monday morning. This disruption stemmed from issues with Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlighting the tech sector’s reliance on major service providers. Numerous applications central to daily life became unavailable, disrupting access for millions of users.
Extent of the Outage
The outage affected various sites and services, including Airbnb, Reddit, Roblox, and Brawl Stars. In the UK, Lloyds Bank confirmed its services experienced disruptions due to AWS problems. Additionally, Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, reported similar issues during the outage.
Organizations Respond
Company representatives expressed concerns on social media platforms. Aravind Srinivas, CEO of the AI startup Perplexity, informed users about the AWS malfunction and assured that the team was working to resolve the issue.
Technical Details
Downdetector, a website monitoring service, noted that the outage extended to streaming services like Prime Video. The situation started to improve around midday when AWS announced that most of its operations were returning to normal.
- Initial slowdown reported at 07:11 GMT
- Issues related to DNS were fully resolved
- Users may experience residual slowdowns as systems stabilize
Challenges of Reliance on Major Providers
The incident raised concerns about dependency on foreign service providers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google. Experts urged companies to reconsider outsourcing critical infrastructure to a limited number of vendors to cut hosting costs.
Historical Context
This incident draws parallels to a major disruption in July 2024, when a software update from CrowdStrike caused widespread outages affecting airports and hospitals globally. Microsoft reported that around 8.5 million devices were affected, locking users into a “blue screen of death” scenario.
The latest AWS outage underscores the vulnerability within critical infrastructure due to heavy reliance on cloud service providers and raises significant questions for businesses regarding their IT strategies.