London — October 21, 2025: Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that its systems had returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon following a major outage that disrupted thousands of websites and online services across the globe.
The incident caused widespread disruption for businesses and users alike, with popular platforms including Snapchat, Reddit, Venmo, and Zoom among those affected. Banking services such as Lloyds, Bank of Scotland, and Halifax also reported temporary connectivity issues.
AWS confirmed that while services were back online, some systems continued to face message backlogs that could take several hours to clear.
“We are seeing steady recovery across all affected regions and expect all queued messages to process shortly,” an AWS spokesperson said.
The outage, traced to a malfunction within AWS’s cloud infrastructure, temporarily knocked workers offline from London to Tokyo, halting digital transactions and online workflows across industries.
Though internet service interruptions are not uncommon, experts noted that an outage of this magnitude — impacting multiple high-traffic platforms simultaneously — is rare. The event underscored the global reliance on AWS, whose cloud services underpin millions of enterprise and consumer applications worldwide.
