A significant outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) affected multiple global services, leaving over 8 million users without access for nearly 15 hours. The systemwide disruption began just after midnight on Monday here in the U.S. This was notably right around 5 PM AEDT (Australian time) on Tuesday in Australia. More than 2,000 businesses across the globe experienced connectivity issues. These problems temporarily crippled operations across industries, including banking, airline businesses and retail payments networks.
It hit major Australian firms like Telstra, Optus, and even the Commonwealth Bank with a sledgehammer. As we reported, an estimated 418,000 Australian users were just a portion of the estimated 3.5 million users affected by the outage. The incident highlighted the vulnerability of businesses reliant on cloud-based services, as a multitude of applications and systems became inoperable.
The AWS systems started coming back online about three hours after the outage started. By the end of that 15-hour period, AWS was already claiming at least 64 internal services had been restored. The outage’s effects were felt far beyond just a few hours, with some users expressing concerns over their reliance on cloud technology.
The incident is not unique for Amazon’s cloud services. Similar outages took place in 2017, 2020 and early this year. Infamously, a five-hour outage occurred in late 2021. This recent disruption captured national news like never before. It brought core services to their knees, bringing down the UK gov tax website and many banking portals.
“We have Lloyd’s Bank affected. People’s cards are declining. Ring security cameras just aren’t working. So people can’t even check the security cameras. UK tax website is not working. I know Canva is not working. So people who use that for work can’t do that. It is pretty insane that one outage in the US can take out so many services across the world.” – Male voxie 2
The outage exacerbated challenges for individuals who depend on technology for daily activities. Christina told us about her difficulty using her Alexa-enabled smart plugs. She relies on these smart plugs to automate the lights in her room, but she can’t reach them due to her spasticity and other mobility impairments.
“I use Alexa-enabled smart plugs to control the lamps in my room. I’m unable to walk without leaning on crutches so being able to turn lights and music on by voice is very helpful. During the outage my smart plugs became unresponsive.” – Christina
Financial markets weren’t spared the chaos, either. Traders expressed anxiety over the impact on trading platforms like Robinhood and Webull, leading to concerns about the fragility of financial systems.
“By me being a trader, I was concerned because (US trading platform) Robinhood and Webull was lagging. And it led me to think, if you really don’t have cash in your house – it just shows how fragile the system is.” – Female voxie 1
Tom Worthington is an adjunct senior lecturer in computing at the Australian National University. He pointed out that a lot of organizations are very reliant on cloud providers. He acknowledged that although the use of cloud services can reduce costs and increase service levels, it poses risks.
“The ripple effects of this is obvious. We’ve all become very dependent on cloud and the big hyperscalers… Now, even if you take a multi-cloud approach… who knows? The next attack might be around multi-cloud interaction.” – Tom Worthington
Worthington cautioned against relying on a single provider. He encouraged businesses and individuals to rethink alternatives that could allow them to continue operations during technological breakdowns.
“You don’t necessarily have to use one of the large US companies… make sure you have alternatives to keep your business working when the technology has a problem.” – Tom Worthington
While investigations into the outage’s cause are still underway. Early indications suggest this was an error during AWS’s regular software maintenance upgrade and not a cyberattack. This event highlights the cascading nature of cloud services, where one fault can trigger a chain reaction that spreads across the entire system.
“The new good news is it looks like this wasn’t a cyberattack… It was just a matter of when they could patch up the mistake.” – Tom Worthington
