A global Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage paralyzes thousands of digital services worldwide, affecting everything from banks to entertainment platforms.

The Digital Heart of the World Stops

Last Monday, October 20, 2025, the digital world suffered one of its biggest disruptions in years. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud server platform, experienced a massive outage that affected thousands of services, applications, and websites worldwide. From social media to banks, virtual assistants to entertainment platforms, the impact was immediate and widespread.

What exactly happened?

According to initial reports, the outage originated in the DynamoDB service located in Northern Virginia, USA. This essential AWS component experienced a disruption that quickly spread throughout its global infrastructure. The outage began around 9:00 AM (local time) and lasted for more than four hours, affecting over 20 key services on the platform.

Affected Services

The list of impacted platforms is extensive and diverse:

*Social media: Snapchat, TikTok, and Reddit reported connection issues.
*Gaming platforms: Fortnite, Roblox, and Steam were temporarily offline.
*Design and productivity apps: Canva, Trello, and Notion experienced outages.
*Banking and payments: BBVA, ING, Bizum, and Redsys reported problems with card payments and transfers.
*Virtual assistants: Alexa stopped responding in multiple regions.
*Streaming: Prime Video and Spotify experienced loading and playback errors.

The AWS outage not only affected individual users but also companies that rely on its services to operate. From startups to multinationals, many companies saw their digital operations paralyzed. Ticketmaster, Movistar, and Orange were among the brands that reported serious disruptions.

Furthermore, e-commerce suffered a major blow. Hundreds of online stores were unable to process orders or payments, resulting in significant financial losses.

Amazon has launched an internal investigation to determine the exact cause of the outage. Although the source has been identified as DynamoDB, the factors that allowed the problem to spread globally are still being analyzed. The company has promised to strengthen its redundancy systems and improve its disaster recovery protocols.

As the day progressed, AWS managed to restore most of its services. By Monday afternoon, card payments and streaming platforms were functioning normally. However, some more complex services, such as artificial intelligence and data analytics systems, took longer to recover.

This incident highlights the enormous global dependence on cloud services. AWS, along with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, underpins a large part of the planet’s digital infrastructure. A failure in any of these systems could have catastrophic consequences.

Companies will need to reconsider their contingency and vendor diversification strategies. Digital resilience is becoming a priority in an increasingly interconnected world.

Cybersecurity and systems architecture experts warn that these types of incidents could be repeated if structural measures are not taken. Amazon is expected to publish a detailed technical report in the coming days, and other platforms are expected to review their dependencies on AWS.

Meanwhile, users and businesses continue to assess the impact of this outage and are seeking alternatives to ensure business continuity.

Source: Hateltech.com