Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major global outage on October 20, 2025, disrupting numerous widely used applications and services including Fortnite, Snapchat, Coinbase, Robinhood, and several UK banks such as Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland. The outage originated in the US-EAST-1 region in northern Virginia, causing increased error rates and delays for multiple AWS services. The disruption began early Monday morning and affected thousands of users worldwide, impacting platforms across gaming, social media, finance, and smart home sectors, with reports of connectivity issues and service failures. Companies like Coinbase reassured customers that their funds remained secure despite the interruption. AWS confirmed it identified the root cause related to DNS resolution problems for its DynamoDB API endpoint and worked actively on multiple recovery paths. Services showed signs of recovery by early Tuesday morning ET, though some delays persisted. The incident highlighted the internet ecosystem’s heavy reliance on AWS’s infrastructure and the vulnerabilities posed by centralized cloud services for critical online platforms and government services. This widespread outage underscored the importance of building more resilient and geographically diversified infrastructure to mitigate risks in cloud-dependent systems.