UK banks’ online services are recovering following a disruption caused by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which led to widespread outages across various applications and websites.
According to Downdetector, the outage generated over 4 million user reports affecting around 500 companies, including popular apps like Wordle and DuoLingo. UK high street banks, such as Halifax, Bank of Scotland, and Lloyds Bank, were also impacted. Fortunately, these banks, part of Lloyds Banking Group, have reported that their services are coming back online.
AWS has confirmed that the issue has been resolved but cautioned that challenges may persist as services are reinstated. They stated, “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.”
The incident has sparked a renewed discussion about reliance on a limited number of cloud providers like Amazon and the ramifications when these services encounter technical problems. Marek Szustak, IT security officer at the online travel agency eSky Group, attributed the issues to the Domain Name System (DNS), which he describes as the internet’s directory. He emphasized that when DNS malfunctions, it can halt entire applications and services, regardless of their design. He advocates for creating systems capable of withstanding failures in a single region or provider, stressing the importance of redundancy, geographic resource distribution, and emergency scenario testing.
This outage may also lead to disputes between end users and payment companies regarding transactions that couldn’t be completed. Monica Eaton, founder and CEO of payments fintech Chargebacks911, remarked, “When AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu.” She added that such outages could frustrate users and create a ripple effect in payment processes. Eaton warned that while the outage may resolve quickly, related disputes could linger, noting that effective communication and prompt responses are crucial during such incidents.