Amazon Outage Sparks Global Internet Chaos: AWS Restored After Hours of Disruption

A massive Amazon Web Services (AWS) crash on Monday threw the internet into turmoil, taking down everything from social media to finance apps. Millions of users across the world were locked out of major platforms for hours before Amazon finally got things back online.

The global outage began early Monday morning, crippling online services that rely on AWS — including Snapchat, Netflix, Disney+, Fortnite, Coinbase, Robinhood, and even McDonald’s app. By 6 p.m., Amazon said its cloud platform was “back to normal,” though full recovery stretched well into the night.

What Went Wrong

Amazon confirmed that the meltdown was triggered by a DNS system glitch — the digital backbone that translates website addresses into IP addresses. The failure caused widespread access errors, making it impossible for millions to reach apps and websites.

Outage tracker Down Detector logged more than 11 million complaints from over 2,500 companies, marking one of the biggest internet disruptions of the year.

⚠️ Amazon Itself Was Hit

Even Amazon couldn’t escape the chaos. Users struggled to connect to Alexa smart speakers, Ring cameras, Kindle services, and Amazon.com itself. The tech crash also hit the education sector — the Canvas learning platform went dark, leaving students and teachers stranded.

Ohio State University even sent an email to 70,000 students, urging them to find alternate ways to access coursework.

History Repeats Itself

This isn’t new for Amazon. AWS suffered a major outage in 2023, and a five-hour blackout in 2021 that crippled airlines, auto dealers, payment systems, and streaming platforms. Monday’s breakdown once again exposed how deeply the modern world depends on cloud infrastructure.

Experts Weigh In

Cyber experts dismissed fears of a cyberattack, calling it a routine technical failure.
Patrick Burgess of the UK-based BCS IT organization said, “The world now runs on cloud technology. When a system like AWS sneezes, the internet catches a cold.”

He added that giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have robust recovery protocols, but even the best systems can buckle under global demand — “such issues are resolved in hours, not days.”