Internet Meltdown: AWS Technical Failure Triggers Widespread Internet Disruptions Worldwide, Banks Too Face The Heat

AWS Technical Failure: An internet crisis on 20 October brought dozens of websites, mobile apps, and online services down, and international users complained about accessibility to dozens of sites, including financial institutions and online shopping sites, mobile applications and gaming networks.

The incident is said to be related to disruptions in technical problem of Amazon Web Services (AWS) which is among the largest cloud infrastructures globally. Though the company has not provided a complete explanation, it has confirmed that it is suffering higher error rates and delays in several of its data core areas in a number of its services.

As of 9:20 AM local time, almost 2000 cases of service failure were reported on online monitoring platform Downdetector in the United States alone, with users in other regions of the globe reporting outages throughout the day.

Some of the worst hit include the popular websites of Amazon, Zoom, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Slack, and Coinbase, as well as several banking platforms, including the Bank of Scotland, Halifax, and Lloyds Bank.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) website in the United Kingdom also went offline which demonstrated the extensive nature and possible severity of the incident.

Outage in Southeast Asia

The problem with users in Southeast Asia was the intermittent availability of international applications, such as Amazon Prime Video, Microsoft Store, and popular mobile applications like Duolingo, Strava, and Peloton.

Although Laos has not verified any major disruption of any services, as the country becomes increasingly dependent on the global digital platforms, such a disruption can be indirectly transmitted to businesses, students, and remote workers, who rely on these tools to communicate and operate.

The engineers of the cloud provider affected confirm that by Monday afternoon, they are trying to fix the problem, and some users might still face delays or errors during peak hours.

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