AWS Says DNS Error Triggered Hours-Long Outage That Crippled Global Apps

Overview

• Amazon Web Services attributed the disruption to a DNS resolution error in its US‑EAST‑1 region and said services returned to normal roughly 15 hours after the first alerts.
• The fault cascaded through core components including DynamoDB and EC2, and AWS advised customers to clear DNS caches and run internal connectivity checks to speed recovery.
• Downdetector logged more than 6.5 million reports as platforms such as Instagram, Zoom, Slack, Fortnite and Roblox experienced errors or became inaccessible.
• Argentine fintechs Naranja X and Ualá told users that external server issues were affecting their apps, while Mercado Pago did not issue a statement despite user complaints.
• The outage intensified Mexico’s push for resilience, with officials highlighting the ATDT framework and new data‑center investments including CloudHQ’s Querétaro campus and additional AWS spending in the state; outside experts offered wide‑ranging loss estimates, with one citing potential costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars.