‘Signs of recovery’ claims Amazon Web Services after internet outage hits many websites and apps – business live

1.20pm BST AWS outage shows perils of relying on US tech giants By bringing down popular web sites, apps and services across the world, the problem with Amazon’s DynamoDB database service has highlighted just how dependent global businesses and users are on the company’s web services. Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Technology Institute, has warned that the UK is “dangerously overexposed to foreign Big Tech monopolies”, saying: “The UK can’t keep leaving its critical infrastructure at the mercy of US tech giants. With Amazon Web Services down, we’ve seen the lights go out across the modern economy - from banking to communications. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a strategic vulnerability. Britain is dangerously overexposed to foreign Big Tech monopolies that don’t answer to UK regulators or the public. If we want digital resilience, the answer isn’t just better oversight - it’s digital sovereignty. We need to build and back British cloud infrastructure that secures our economy and safeguards our future.” Britain’s competition watchdog recently conducted an inquiry into cloud computing, which concluded that it could designate both Microsoft and AWS as companies with “strategic market status” in cloud services, which would give the watchdog the power to tackle conduct that could undermine fair competition, or exploit people and businesses. 1.02pm BST Some services are restored, others still report problems Some of the services which were forced offline by the problems at Amazon Web Services are returning to action. The UK’s tax office, HMRC, is now able to process login requests on its site again. Canva, the online design and visual communication platform, reports that “the majority of functionality” has been recovered, but also warns that users may still see issues with downloading designs. [awkwardly, Amazon has promoted Canva as an innovator which uses AWS to “to deliver seamless, personalized design experiences to over 235 million monthly users worldwide”.] However, internet doorbell service Ring is still reporting a ‘partial outage’ on its website and apps. 12.51pm BST Encouragingly, AWS are now rating the severity of today’s outage as “impacted”. Earlier, when apps and websites across the Internet were stricken, it was rated as “degraded” (a more severe situation). 12.29pm BST Expert: Why DynamoDB problems caused global outage We flagged earlier that the disruption at Amazon Web Services involved DynamoDB, one of its core infrastructure services. Mike Chapple, IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, explains why DynamoDB is important, and why its failure has caused so much disruption today: DynamoDB isn’t a term that most consumers know, but it underpins the apps and services that all of us use every single day. It’s a centralized database service that many Internet-based services use to track user information, store key data, and manage their operations. DynamoDB is one of the record-keepers of the modern Internet. It’s fast, it’s cheap, and it’s reliable. But today it stopped working and we saw the effects of that outage ripple across the Internet. We’ll learn more in the hours and days ahead but early reports indicate that this wasn’t actually a problem with the database itself. The data appears to be safe. Instead, something went wrong with the records that tell other systems where to find their data. Amazon had the data safely stored, but nobody else could find it for several hours, leaving apps temporarily separated from their data. It’s as if large portions of the Internet suffered temporary amnesia. This episode serves as a reminder of how dependent the world is on a handful of major cloud service providers: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. When a major cloud provider sneezes, the Internet catches a cold.” 12.23pm BST "It's always DNS" Marek Szustak, IT Security Officer at online travel agency eSky Group, isn’t surprised to hear that today’s problems relate to the Domain Name System (effectively the internet’s phonebook). Szustak explains: Today’s outage in the AWS US-EAST-1 region shows how even the largest cloud environments can be paralysed by a seemingly minor piece of infrastructure. In this case, the problem concerned DNS, the foundation of network communication. When domain name resolution stops working, entire applications and services can stop responding, no matter how well they are designed. This is a good lesson for companies using the cloud: it is worth designing systems so that a failure in one region or provider does not bring the entire business to a halt. Redundancy, geographical distribution of resources and testing of emergency scenarios should be the norm, not a luxury. And besides, as engineers say, it’s always DNS... 12.20pm BST Although services seem to be coming back online, it appears the problem at AWS isn’t fully fixed yet. In its latest update, the cloud computing operator says: We are continuing to work towards full recovery for EC2 launch errors, which may manifest as an Insufficient Capacity Error. Additionally, we continue to work toward mitigation for elevated polling delays for Lambda, specifically for Lambda Event Source Mappings for SQS. We will provide an update by 5:00 AM PDT [that’s 1pm in the UK]. 12.05pm BST According to TechRadar, the popular word game Wordle was hit by today’s outage. Wordle’s working OK now, though* – an indication that the worst of today’s outages may be over, given AWS’s progress in fixing the problem (* yes I got it, but it took five guesses, so only just…) 11.55am BST A Lloyds Bank spokesperson has asked customers to ‘bear’ with it, while it works to bring services back online, saying: “Issues with Amazon Web Services are affecting some of our services right now. “We’re sorry about this and ask customers to bear with us while we work to bring all our services back online as soon as possible.” 11.49am BST AWS: The underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated Another update from Amazon Web Services, who report that the underlying issue causing today’s outage has now been “fully mitigated. In an update timestamped at 3:35 AM PDT (or 11.35am UK time), AWS says: The underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated, and most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now. Some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution. Additionally, some services are continuing to work through a backlog of events such as Cloudtrail and Lambda. The DNS, or Domain Name System (DNS) is used to map addresses on the internet, by translating human-readable domain name (such as www.the guardian.com) into numerical IP addresses that can be read by routers to direct traffic across the web. 11.35am BST Today’s outage does not appear to be caused by a cyber-attack, reports Dr Amro Al-Said Ahmad, a lecturer in computer science at Keele University, who explains: The issue appears to be related to AWS (Amazon Web Services), which hosts the infrastructure that underpins much the internet services. It allows customers to deploy their own servers, databases, and storage without the need to own physical infrastructure. According to AWS’s latest update, they have identified the root cause of the outage. It appears to be significant error rates for requests made to their data storage service, DynamoDB, in the US-EAST region. Therefore, the outage was not caused by cyber-related attacks, as was speculated. Resolving major outages like this presents significant challenges because of the cloud complexity and its dependencies. Furthermore, diagnoses need to see how much third-party platforms are dependent on AWS cloud. The solution and fix will involve thorough diagnostics, testing, and deployment of a reliable fix, which, based on past incidents in the industry, can take anywhere from hours to several days. 11.26am BST UK 'in contact' over Amazon Web Services incident The UK government has said it is in contact with Amazon over today’s internet outage. A government spokesperson says: “We are aware of an incident affecting Amazon Web Services, and several online services which rely on their infrastructure. Through our established incident response arrangements, we are in contact with the company, who are working to restore services as quickly as possible.” 11.23am BST Full story: Amazon Web Services outage hits dozens of websites and apps A major internet outage has hit dozens of websites and apps around the world, with users reporting troubles getting online after problems at Amazon’s cloud computing service. The affected platforms include Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations including its main retail site and the Ring doorbell company. In the UK, Lloyds bank was affected as well as its subsidiaries Halifax and Bank of Scotland, while there were also reports of problems accessing the HM Revenue and Customs website on Monday morning. Also in the UK, multiple Ring users took to social media to complaint their doorbells were not working. In the UK alone reports of problems on individual apps ran into the tens of thousands for each platform. More here: Related: Amazon Web Services outage hits dozens of websites and apps 11.16am BST The AFP newswire points out that there have also been reports of disruption at Amazon Prime, Alexa, Reddit, various video streaming platforms such as Hulu and Disney+, as well as messaging app Signal and Delta Air Lines, as well as the services we’ve flagged in this blog already. They also cite Downdetector data showing reports of disruption at Whatsapp (although mine has been working OK this morning) and Tinder (can’t help with this one, sorry). 11.08am BST AWS: global services and features that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered. Amazon Web Services has now suggested that the recovery from today’s outage at its US-EAST-1 region in Virginia is on track. Its operational status page now says: We continue to observe recovery across most of the affected AWS Services. We can confirm global services and features that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered. We continue to work towards full resolution and will provide updates as we have more information to share. 11.03am BST HMRC: We're hit by global issues affecting Amazon Web Services A spokesperson for HMRC, the UK tax authority, has confirmed that its online service has been disrupted by the problem at Amazon Web Services. An HMRC spokesperson said: “We’re aware that customers are having problems accessing our online services, as part of global issues affecting Amazon Web Services. We’re working urgently with them on this matter. “Our phonelines are currently busy as a result, so for anything that isn’t urgent we recommend calling at a later time.” 10.51am BST AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood have all attributed outages today to AWS, Reuters reports. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X: “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.” Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) October 20, 2025 10.45am BST The technical problem at Amazon Web Services looks like “an IT issue on the database side,” reports Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at security firm Sophos. Pilling explains: “When anything like this happens the concern that it’s a cyber incident is understandable. AWS has a far reaching and intricate footprint, so any issue can cause a major upset. In this case it looks like it is an IT issue on the database side and they will be working to remedy it as an absolute priority.” 10.40am BST AWS: We are seeing significant signs of recovery Just in: Amazon Web Services report that they are seeing “significant signs of recovery” in the operational issue that appears to have disrupted services across the internet today. In an operational update, AWS says: We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests. We will continue to provide additional information. That follows an earlier update announcing that some ‘early signs of recovery’ were being detected, with AWS saying: We have applied initial mitigations and we are observing early signs of recovery for some impacted AWS Services. During this time, requests may continue to fail as we work toward full resolution. We recommend customers retry failed requests. While requests begin succeeding, there may be additional latency and some services will have a backlog of work to work through, which may take additional time to fully process. 10.37am BST Update: Duolingo streaks should still be safe despite the technical problems hitting the site today. One user received this ‘quick maintainance break!’ page, which reassures users that their streak is protected today ‘just in case!’. 10.33am BST Problems are also being reported at Depop, the secondhand clothing platform. According to the Down for Everyone or Just Me site, problems have been reported by users in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK, highlighting how today’s outage is a global problem. 10.20am BST Some precious Duolingo streaks could be lost unless the internet outage is fixed before the end of the day. There has been a jump in reports of problems at Duolingo since around 8am, according to Downdetector: 11.40am update: Duolingo’s service status page now confirms that the service is “experiencing increased errors”, and that the incident is being investigated. Updated at 11.39am BST 10.06am BST AWS find "potential root cause for error rates" Progress! Amazon Web Services say they may have found the cause of the problem. In an operational update, AWS say: We have identified a potential root cause for error rates for the DynamoDB APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region. Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1. We are working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery. This issue also affects other AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region. Global services or features that rely on US-EAST-1 endpoints such as IAM updates and DynamoDB Global tables may also be experiencing issues. During this time, customers may be unable to create or update Support Cases. We recommend customers continue to retry any failed requests. We will continue to provide updates as we have more information to share, or by 2:45 AM [10.45am UK time]. 10.04am BST There are also hundreds of reports of problems accessing the website of the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) – the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority – this morning. If you try to log into the site, which can be used to submit tax returns or seek advice on tax, you are told “Sorry, there is a problem with the service”. Updated at 10.24am BST 10.00am BST Thousand Eyes shows scale of internet outages Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that tracks internet outages, reports a surge in problems this morning. Many are located at Virginia, the location of Amazon’s US-EAST-1 region where engineers are working now to fix the problem responsible for “increased error rates and latencies” 9.41am BST Ring doorbells brought down by internet outage This morning’s outage also appears to have scuppered some smart doorbells. Several people are reporting problems using their Ring doorbells this morning: @ring All our Ring Services are down, Alarm, Doorbells & Cameras. Seems lots of people reporting on here. So think you need to get some comms out, as your service page is clearly down too! What is happening? #ring #ringdown #ringalarm #ringdoorbell #ringservice #amazonring pic.twitter.com/dMWLayscjJ— Andrew Benjamin (@ukmatrixman) October 20, 2025 @ring_uk your entire system is not working. Not telephone support. No chat. Doorbell online and can’t connect. What the actual F? No messages on socials telling us why?!?— Richard A Morgan (He, Him) (@morgocomics) October 20, 2025 Good morning @ring I'm not getting any notifications/alerts for my doorbell. The history of events is not loading either. The devices on the app seem to be 'loading'. Am I the only person having this problem?— Miss Understood (ツ) (@miss_sahota) October 20, 2025 Ring were bought by Amazon in 2018. 9.37am BST AWS: engineers are actively working to fix the problem Amazon Web Services have updated their services health data, saying engineers have been “immediately engaged” to fix the problem at its services. AWS says: We can confirm significant error rates for requests made to the DynamoDB endpoint in the US-EAST-1 Region. This issue also affects other AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region as well. During this time, customers may be unable to create or update Support Cases. Engineers were immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue, and fully understanding the root cause. We will continue to provide updates as we have more information to share, or by 2:00 AM [10am UK time]. 9.34am BST Problems at Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland Some bank customers are reporting problems logging into their accounts this morning. There’s been a surge of reports of problems at Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland (which are all part of Lloyds Banking Group), according to Downdetector. 9.29am BST Fortnite investigating log-in problems Fortnite, the popular online gaming platform, has confirmed its services are affected by the Internet outage, saying: An outage affecting several services on the internet is also impacting Fortnite log-ins. We’re investigating this now, and will update you when we have more details. ⚠️ An outage affecting several services on the internet is also impacting Fortnite log-ins. We're investigating this now, and will update you when we have more details.— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) October 20, 2025 9.23am BST Users report major internet outage after AWS suffers 'operational issue' A major internet outage has hit dozens of popular websites, online games and apps. Users have been reporting problems accessing sites such as Amazon, Roblox, Fortnite and Snapchat, for example, this morning. The outage may be related to a glitch at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant’s on-demand cloud computing platform which underpins many online operations. AWS has reported an ‘operational issue’ at its data centre in North Virginia, known as “us-east-1”. It says: We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region. This issue may also be affecting Case Creation through the AWS Support Center or the Support API. We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause. Updated at 9.28am BST 9.02am BST Oil hit by glut predictions Concerns about a global oil glut have hit crude prices this morning. Brent crude is down 0.75% at $60.84 per barrel, approaching a five-month low, following recent forecasts that supply will rise faster than demand. Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities, explained: “Concerns about oversupply from increased production by oil- producing nations, coupled with fears of an economic slowdown stemming from escalating U.S.-China trade tensions, are fuelling selling pressure.” 8.42am BST UBS upgrades global equities to 'attractive' Heads-up: UBS have upgraded their view on global equities to ‘attractive’, a sign that they think investors should be putting more money into shares. Despite the angst in parts of the market that valuations have risen too high, UBS reckon share prices have further to climb. Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, says: “We think investors should review current allocations to equities and ensure they are at least consistent with, or modestly higher than, their long-term strategic asset allocation targets. If investors are currently under allocated to equities, we believe they should reallocate excess cash, bond, or high yield credit holdings toward stocks.” “We prefer areas that are exposed to secu­lar growth, like the US, China, (particularly China’s tech sector, which we rate among the Most Attractive sectors globally), as well as global technology, transformational inno­vations (AI, Power and resources, and Longevity), and pockets with clear catalysts that could drive earnings upgrades (Japan and global banks).” 8.20am BST B&M shares slide after admitting accounting blunder Shares in UK discount retailer B&M have slumped by 15% after admitting an embarrassing mistake in its recent financial results. B&M told the City this morning that approximately £7m of overseas freight costs had not been correctly recognised in its calculations for the cost of goods sold, in its recent results for the first half of the financial year. As a ressult, it now expects to report adjusted profits of approximately £191m, compared to the previous guidance of approximately £198m, for the first half of this financial year. For the full year, B&M has slashed its forecast for adjusted profits to between £470m and £520m, down from the previous estimate of £510m - £560m. B&M says it intends to commission a comprehensive third-party review of this matter, addinng that Mike Schmidt is stepping down as its chief financial officer, presumably carrying the can for this blunder. Updated at 8.20am BST 8.15am BST The London stock market has opened higher, as European shares recover some of last Friday’s losses. The FTSE 100 index of blue chip shares has gained 29 points, or 0.3%, to 9,382 points. Banks are among the risers, including Standard Chartered (+2%) and HSBC (+1.6%), having fallen at the end of last week as worries over the health of the US regional banking sector worried investors. That selloff started after Western Alliance Bank and Zions Bank reported problems with bad loans. Stocks did rise off their lows on Friday afternoon after Donald Trump confirmed he will meet soon with president Xi, and appeared to backtrack on his threat of new 100% tariffs. Other European markets are also higher this morning, with Germany’s DAX index rising 0.8% at the open and France’s CAC 40 up 0.6%. Michael Brown, senior research strategist at brokerage Pepperstone, sounds relieved that the regional banking panic may be over, saying: At least participants appear to no longer be pointlessly worrying about insignificant financial institutions that nobody has ever heard of, and re-focusing on what remains a constructive setup for risk assets as we move towards year-end. 8.02am BST Japan’s stock market has surged today, and closed at a new record high. The Nikkei 225 jumped by 3.3% to end the day at 49,185, having risen over the 49,000 point mark for the first time. Japanese stocks were lifted by news the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party have agreed to form a coalition government, setting the stage for the country’s first female prime minister. Sanae Takaichi is expected to favour fresh measures to stimulate Japan’s economy, and oppose further hikes in interest rates, two things which are good for stock prices. 7.58am BST Chinese leader Xi Jinping has delivered a speech to Communist Party elites on the opening day of a major meeting to approve a draft plan laying out their goals for the country over the next five years. The official Xinhua News Agency report is light on detail, but says: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and expounded on the Party leadership’s draft proposals for the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for national economic and social development. 7.37am BST Asia-Pacific stock markets are rallying today, as investors digest the latest economic data from China. China’s CSI 300 index has inched up by 0.25%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has boucned by 2% as traders put last Friday’s markets wobble behind them. 7.28am BST Today’s trade data shows that China’s exports of rare earth magnets fell in September. China’s shipments of rare earth magnets fell 6.1% month-on-month, customs data analysed by Reuters showed on Monday, ending three months of gains. That shows that rare earth exports were falling evern before Beijing tightened up its exports, a move which promted Donald Trump to threaten 100% tariffs on China. Updated at 7.28am BST 7.22am BST Despite slowing in the last quarter, China’s economy still seems to be on track to hit Beijing’s target of 5% growth in 2025. That means there could be less urgency to agree new stimulus policies – something Lynn Song, ING’s chief economist for Greater China, thinks woud be a mistake. Song explains: With China on track to hit this year’s growth target, we could see less policy urgency. But weak confidence translating to soft consumption, investment, and a worsening property price downturn still need to be addressed. The third quarter GDP data keeps China solidly on pace to reach this year’s “around 5%” growth target, and it may reduce the urgency for more immediate action. This could prove to be a mistake, as the underlying trend makes a strong case for more policy support. 7.11am BST China's new home prices fall at fastest pace in 11 months China’s new home prices fell at the fastest pace in 11 months in September, worsening the property sector’s drag on the economy. New home prices fell 0.4% month-on-month, following a 0.3% fall in August, according to calculations by Reuters based on National Bureau of Statistics data. Year-on-year, prices fell 2.2% in September versus a 2.5% drop in August. That is a blow to China’s property sector, which is being dragged back by a large glut of unsold property following the end of the housing boom. Related: China’s glut of idle property causes headache for the government September and October are traditionally the peak season for property buying as developers launch sales campaigns to attract consumers during national holidays. 7.10am BST Introduction: China’s economy expands at slowest pace in a year Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets, and the world economy. Growth across China’s economy has slowed to its lowest level in a year, as the trade war with the US has dampened activity. China’s GDP expanded by 4.8% year-on-year in the July-September quarter, new data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows shows, broadly matching expectations. That’s a slowdown from the second quarter of the year, when GDP rose by 5.2%, and also weaker than the 5.4% growth recorded in January-March. The annual slowdown casts something of a shadow over China’s latest four-day “fourth plenum” meeting which starts today, where Communist party leaders are gathering to hammer out the country’s next five-year plan. But on a quarterly basis, GDP grew 1.1% in the third quarter, compared with a forecast 0.8% increase and a revised 1.0% gain in the previous quarter. Today’s data showed that China’s retail sales remained weak while factory output strengthened, a blow to hopes that its economy can rebalance away from exports and towards domestic consumption. Growth in industrial production rose to 6.5% year-on-year in September, up from 5.2%, while retail sales growth slowed to 3% from 3.4% The NSB took a loyally upbeat view of the economic situation, reporting that… The national economy sustained the steady development momentum with progress against the pressure, production and supply grew steadily, employment and prices were generally stable, new growth drivers showed stable development, and the people’s well-being was ensured in a strong and effective manner. The national economy demonstrated strong resilience and vitality. The agenda 10am BST: Eurozone GDP report for Q2 2025 (updated reading) 3pm BST: CB Leading index survey of the US economy Updated at 7.13am BST