Can't get to my money. . 😭😠

[Sinistral]

THE GUARDIAN

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

Fortnite, Roblox, SnapChat, Lloyds Bank and Ring doorbells among services hit by online outage

www.theguardian.com

1m ago
10.06 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].

1m ago
10.04 BST
There are also hundreds of reports of problems accessing the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website this morning.
If you try to log into the site, you are told “Sorry, there is a problem with the service”.
A screengrab showing HMRC's website isn't working Photograph: HMRC

4m ago
10.00 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”

16m ago
09.41 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 were bought by Amazon in 2018.

18m ago
09.34 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.
A chart showing outages reported at Lloyds Banking Group

30m ago
09.29 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.

38m ago
09.23 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.

 

[B&W FOX]

Digital ID.
This will be the norm.

 

[rocketdogbert]

Digital ID.
This will be the norm.

Yup

 

[HonestJohn]

I wonder when it’s back up, how many billions are missing from accounts, personal data stolen etc. don’t tell me this isn’t a planned event by either China or Russia

 

[timbrayford]

Governments need to get to grip with this problem otherwise the internet will become functionally useless and we'll all have to go back to pen & paper transactions and snail mail.

 

[Bo Diddley]

^^^^ "Let your wheels travel in old ruts"^^^^^

 

[willie_gunn]

Governments need to get to grip with this problem otherwise the internet will become functionally useless and we'll all have to go back to pen & paper transactions and snail mail.

The last thing you want is for Governments to get involved - that would be a sure-fire recipe for disaster!!!

With roughly a 30% market share in the global cloud infrastructure market, AWS is not a monopoly, so I'd guess the Internet will be fine for some time yet.

 

[timbrayford]

The last thing you want is for Governments to get involved - that would be a sure-fire recipe for disaster!!!

With roughly a 30% market share in the global cloud infrastructure market, AWS is not a monopoly, so I'd guess the Internet will be fine for some time yet.

Its not an isolated incident though, JLR, etc

 

[Klenchblaize]

We are at war. Its just not entirely clear who with!

K

 

[timbrayford]

We are at war. Its just not entirely clear who with!

K

It might not be anything more than gifted teenagers playing silly buggers!

 

[willie_gunn]

Its not an isolated incident though, JLR, etc

Cyber attacks have been happening pretty much since the computer was invented - from the 1834 hacking of the French telegraph system, to the MIT computers being hacked in the early 1960’s, and the 2017 NotPetya attack that brought down the operations of Maersk, the ocean shipping company - in fact seven of the world’s top 10 container shipping companies have admitted to being affected by cyber attacks.

So you’re right that this isn’t an isolated incident - cyber attacks happen hundreds of times each day, According to statistics released by the UK government earlier this year, 43% of businesses and 30% of charities have experienced a cyber security breach or attack in the last 12 months.

Cyber security breaches survey 2025

www.gov.uk

But not every outage is caused by a cyber attack, and not every cyber attack is the same,

JLR’s problems were allegedly caused by an attack that used a known flaw in one of their backbone business IT applications. In simple terms, that software application can be hosted either in the Cloud (think AWS) or on the customer’s own premises. Once the hackers got access into that application at JLR, they could bring their entire operations to a halt. Meanwhile at M&S, the hackers allegedly got access to a file that gave them all the administrators user ID’s and passwords. They used these to access the network, sabotage it, and demanded payment accordingly - a ransomware attack.

Today’s problems at AWS are different, in that it is being reported that it was caused by a problem with their DNS (Domain Name System). Think of DNS as the map of the Internet that AWS maintains - it’s like when you or I type “www.stalkingdirectory.co.uk” into our web browsers, the DNS knows to direct us to this site. So in this case it wasn’t the applications that were running on AWS that had the problem, but rather that when users tried to access them AWS couldn’t figure out the instructions to direct them to the appropriate site.

It may of course turn out that AWS was actually hacked, or was subject to some other kind of malicious act, but personally I’d think that this would be pretty unlikely. Data centres often experience problems - the AWS data centre in Northern Virginia that was the source of today’s outage also suffered previous outages in both 2020 and 2021. It is one of the oldest and largest data centres that AWS operates, which may partly be why it has caused so many problems.

 

[willie_gunn]

It might not be anything more than gifted teenagers playing silly buggers!

Four arrested in M&S cyber attack investigation | Computer Weekly

Police have made four arrests in connection with a trio of cyber attacks on UK retailers Marks & Spencer, Co-op and Harrods.

www.computerweekly.com

 

[Mr Tree]

More importantly Discogs is affected. If we go back to pen & paper, it will be an improvement, but there are no banks to take our cheques. If kids of 17 can hack in, we are seeing the end of digital, it is flawed. Good riddance. There is no need for atomic warfare, just take down the internet, we won't last more than a few days.

 

[Apthorpe]

Governments need to get to grip with this problem otherwise the internet will become functionally useless and we'll all have to go back to pen & paper transactions and snail mail.

Who can think of any group more incapable of dealing with a problem like this than governments and more certain to get it wrong?

We have a government which is absolutely and completely incapable of dealing to any degree with a 2000 year old security problem. Other countries are not much better.

 

[Sinistral]

Who can think of any group more incapable of dealing with a problem like this than governments and more certain to get it wrong?

We have a government which is absolutely and completely incapable of dealing to any degree with a 2000 year old security problem. Other countries are not much better.

Jeremiah speaks.


Not a hack. Just one of those things which break the monotony.

A glitch in the AWS cloud computing service brought down apps and websites for millions of users around the world affecting more than 2,000 companies, including Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and language app Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations. Many of the sites were restored after a few hours, but some experienced persistent problems throughout the day. By Monday evening, Amazon said all of its cloud services had “returned to normal operations”.

But amid the chaos affecting vital services around the world, some more unexpected consequences arose.

Amazon workers posted videos of themselves on TikTok relishing a slower work day, with some dancing in quiet warehouses, while others told CNN they had been sent home. “Working for Amazon Flex we’ve been sent home due to their systems not being able to check us in or release us with pay. Because of this outage there’s no telling if the 80 of us here are going to be paid,” James from Texas told the network. Tiffini in Florida said she was hoping to start her Amazon delivery route at 3.30am but the systems were down. “I submitted a ticket but there has been no confirmation that we will get paid for the blocks that we missed due to Amazon’s system issues this morning.”

Other social media users described facing delays to medical and vet appointments, while some customers using Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, faced issues with their smart homes. “I use Alexa-enabled smart plugs to control the lamps in my room,” Christina, who uses crutches to get around, told CNN. “During the outage my smart plugs became unresponsive. Before I realised why the plug wasn’t working, I tried unsuccessfully to reset one of them. Now I can’t get it to work at all.”

Some Alexa users, however, were quick to make light of the outage.

“Due to the Amazon outage, Alexa wasn’t working this morning, so I had to stumble out of bed in the dark, find my way to the kitchen, and turn the coffee-maker on MANUALLY. I can’t live like this. You guys go on without me,” one X user posted.

“I had to turn on my light by hand without Alexa’s help. Rough start to the day,” another posted to Reddit.

 

[JockStalk]

We are at war. Its just not entirely clear who with!

K

Our government!

 

[zambezi]

Who can think of any group more incapable of dealing with a problem like this than governments and more certain to get it wrong?

Our government!

Digital ID is analogous to filling Pandora's Box with your personal data.

As sure as night follows day, a black hat will open that box and the impact will be incalculable.

Of course, if the government make Digital ID very secure, they may have already reamed the value out of the box before the black hats get there.

 

[alberta boy]

More importantly Discogs is affected. If we go back to pen & paper, it will be an improvement, but there are no banks to take our cheques. If kids of 17 can hack in, we are seeing the end of digital, it is flawed. Good riddance. There is no need for atomic warfare, just take down the internet, we won't last more than a few days.

I have friends that are still serving in the Canadian Armed Forces , not me , I'm out .This subject comes up a lot in conversation . You point out the main concern of most Western military forces . Unfortunately , we are not prepared for a concerted attack , it wouldn't end well . One old friend of mine who served with military intelligence ( insert joke here ) put it best . The next world war won't start with a bang , it'll start in silence .

AB

 

[zambezi]

a problem with their DNS (Domain Name System). Think of DNS as the map of the Internet that AWS maintains - it’s like when you or I type “www.stalkingdirectory.co.uk” into our web browsers, the DNS knows to direct us to this site

Routing through the internet is via numbered addressing. DNS services make the correlation between the [human recognisable name] domain registered sites and a numbered address. Thereafter the internet uses numbered IP routing to connect source and destination.

Here's the thing: you do not need DNS to get from your PC to The Stalking Directory [for example] There is a fixed IP address registered against that name.

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk = 185.139.7.103

So...instead of typing "The Stalking Directory" into the url of your computer's browser, you could just type "https://185.139.7.103"

Bottom line: if the internet is up [even if DNS is awol] and you have bookmarked the IP addresses of your favourite sites, you can still surf the web.

Use this tool to find the IP address of your commonly used websites and perhaps record those against a future DNS issue nearer to you:

web server encryption test (SSL / HTTPS Check) · SSL-Tools

**caveats**

1. Very small enterprises might have dynamic IP assignment by their ISP. The absence of a fixed IP means complete reliance on DNS in this case. [e.g. MomNPop business using DDNS]
2. Very large businesses like Google are likely to have multiple IP addresses linked to a specific url. You would probably be routed to the server nearest you
3. Very large businesses like Google are likely to have server redundancy and load-balancing so some dynamic IP reassignment likely

 

[willie_gunn]

Routing through the internet is via numbered addressing. DNS services make the correlation between the [human recognisable name] domain registered sites and a numbered address. Thereafter the internet uses numbered IP routing to connect source and destination.

Here's the thing: you do not need DNS to get from your PC to The Stalking Directory [for example] There is a fixed IP address registered against that name.

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk = 185.139.7.103

So...instead of typing "The Stalking Directory" into the url of your computer's browser, you could just type "https://185.139.7.103"

Bottom line: if the internet is up [even if DNS is awol] and you have bookmarked the IP addresses of your favourite sites, you can still surf the web.

Use this tool to find the IP address of your commonly used websites and perhaps record those against a future DNS issue nearer to you:

web server encryption test (SSL / HTTPS Check) · SSL-Tools

View attachment 443065


**caveats**

1. Very small enterprises might have dynamic IP assignment by their ISP. The absence of a fixed IP means complete reliance on DNS in this case. [e.g. MomNPop business using DDNS]
2. Very large businesses like Google are likely to have multiple IP addresses linked to a specific url. You would probably be routed to the server nearest you
3. Very large businesses like Google are likely to have server redundancy and load-balancing so some dynamic IP reassignment likely

An excellent explanation, clear and concise.

However, outside of a technical audience, you might struggle to find an audience that understands it.

Explaining the technicalities of how the Internet (or indeed technology in general) works is a complete turn-off. 99.9% of people don't care .... and nor should they. They turn on their phone, tablet or computer, and use the Internet. That's it. Simples!

Having worked for technology companies since the mid-80's I can safely say that the IT industry - together with the people who work in it - are frequently their own worst enemy. We use language, concepts and terminology that might as well be written in Cyrillic, for all the sense it makes to everyone else.

That's also why, outside of the world of IT nerds and geeks, no-one is getting excited by the fact that this week's outage was caused by "DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1".

Although it might skip a few details, if explaining that what caused the problem is that AWS lost its map of the internet, it gets my vote. Even Mrs G can understand what a map does!

The more important takeaways are that AWS is not the Internet, the Internet was not "broken", and - from the root cause analysis - the problem was technical in nature, and not caused by a cyber attack.