'Half the internet' goes down as cloud outage disrupts major websites

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Published: 12:38, 24 July 2026 | Updated: 13:27, 24 July 2026 Dozens of popular websites crashed on Friday, possibly leaving millions of users unable to access online services. Issues began around 6.40am ET, affecting a range of services including Apple Pay, DoorDash, Reddit and streaming platform Hulu, according to Downdetector, which monitors online outages. The widespread disruption appeared to be linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which confirmed it was investigating connectivity problems affecting multiple services in its US-West-2 region in Oregon. AWS posted the warning at 4.40am PDT ( 7.40am ET), although the problems may have begun before the company publicly acknowledged them. The outage affected at least five AWS services, including AWS Direct Connect, AWS Internet Connectivity, AWS IoT Core, Amazon API Gateway and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. AWS provides the computing power and online infrastructure used by countless websites, apps and businesses, meaning a regional failure can disrupt numerous seemingly unrelated services simultaneously. Amazon EC2 supplies the virtual servers on which websites and apps operate, while API Gateway allows different online systems to communicate with one another. Problems affecting AWS Internet Connectivity and Direct Connect can also prevent businesses and users from reaching services hosted in the affected region. Issues began around 6.40am ET, affecting a range of services including Apple Pay, DoorDash, Reddit and Hulu streaming service, according to Downdetector, which monitors online outages The widespread disruption appeared to be linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which confirmed it was investigating connectivity problems affecting multiple services in its US-West-2 region in Oregon The Daily Mail has contacted AWS for comment.  AWS later expanded the number of affected services from five to seven, adding Global Accelerator, which directs users along the fastest available routes to websites, and Elastic Container Service, which runs applications across Amazon's servers. The additions suggested the failure was affecting multiple layers of AWS's Oregon network rather than a single product.  AWS labeled the incident 'impacted,' confirming that customers were experiencing problems, although there was no indication that data had been lost or Amazon's entire global network had failed. Companies using AWS have posted on X, apologizing for their websites being down, noting that 'there is a massive AWS outage in America which is causing interruptions.' Other users have shared their frustrations about the outage, with one person posting on X: 'AWS is down and is literally breaking the internet. Please hang on.' Another shared: 'This is not a drill, AWS in us-west-2 is offline for everyone.' Others are reeling over PlayStation services being down; one user said they were kicked out of a game this morning.  Dozens of popular websites crashed on Friday, possibly leaving millions without access  'Anyone else’s PlayStation connection down just tried to start a stream and I can’t play the game,' another X user shared.  According to Downdetector, 30 percent of users reporting problems with AWS cited issues involving Amazon EC2, the service that provides virtual servers for websites and applications. Another 29 percent reported problems with AWS’s US-West-2 region in Oregon, where Amazon confirmed it was investigating connectivity failures. A further 23 percent cited issues involving US-East-1, the company’s Northern Virginia region. Inside one of sailing's most iconic races: Daily Mail's SHIVALI BEST joins 800 boats battling it out in the Round the Island Race