Amazon has confirmed that an error in its Domain Name System (DNS) led to the major outage that took down Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday.
The problem caused several online services and apps to stop working. Banks, airlines, delivery apps, and many digital platforms could not connect to their servers for several hours.
AWS is one of Amazon’s main divisions. It provides cloud storage and databases such as DynamoDB to many large companies. The failure happened when the DNS system, which links web names to IP addresses, stopped working correctly.
Mike Chapple from the University of Notre Dame told CNN that Amazon’s data remained safe, but no one could reach it for a while. He compared the issue to a kind of “temporary amnesia” on the internet.
Many companies that rely on DynamoDB could not reach their stored information, which caused interruptions in normal operations and service access for millions of users.
The issue also disrupted Amazon EC2, a service used to build and run online applications. Amazon said it fixed the problem within a few hours and advised customers to clear cached data to help systems reconnect faster.
The outage showed how dependent many organisations are on AWS. A single fault in a basic system like DNS was enough to interrupt several major services around the world.
AWS was first created to help Amazon handle heavy website traffic during shopping seasons. Later, the company turned its extra capacity into a full cloud service that now supports many global apps and websites.
On Monday, users faced trouble logging into and using services such as Amazon, Snapchat, Duolingo, Zoom, Roblox, Fortnite, Epic Games Store, Canva, Airbnb, Instagram, Steam, and Brawl Stars. Tools based on artificial intelligence, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Perplexity, were also hit.
Some platforms loaded slowly, while others stopped working completely, such as Alexa and Amazon Prime Video. Users shared their complaints on Reddit and X, where outage reports spread quickly.
The disruption also reached critical sectors. Online banking, e-commerce payments, and airport check-in systems were among those that faced interruptions before Amazon restored normal service.