Key Highlights
- AWS is disputing reports of an outage affecting its services.
- The issue has impacted multiple critical services including banking and gaming platforms.
- The U.K. government may accelerate plans to handle future cloud outages following the incident.
- Experts suggest the AWS US-EAST-1 region, responsible for DNS issues, is particularly fragile.
AWS Outage: Dispute and Widespread Impact
The cloud services provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) has once again faced a significant outage that is impacting various industries. As of October 29, 2025, reports have surged, with AWS disputing the severity of the issue.
Dispute and Official Statement
AWS has released an official statement, asserting that their services are operating normally and denying the widespread reports of outages. They emphasized the reliability of their Health Dashboard as the sole source for accurate service availability data:
“AWS is operating normally and this reporting is incorrect. The only resource on the internet that provides accurate data on the availability of our services is the AWS Health Dashboard.”
Impact on Critical Services
The impact of the outage extends beyond just AWS services, with reports indicating issues across a range of critical systems:
- Capital One’s online banking has reportedly gone down, preventing users from accessing or transferring funds.
- Multiple Microsoft services are experiencing downtime, including email servers for platforms like Outlook and gaming services such as Minecraft, Halo Reach, and Copilot.
- The secure database of LastPass is reportedly operational, but the marketing website has gone down, preventing sign-ups from new users.
Government Response and Future Plans
The U.K. government faces pressure to address the issue more urgently. In response to a query by The Register, Minister for Digital Government and Data, Ian Murray, stated that it will take some time to implement plans for handling future cloud outages:
“It will take some time.”
Given the recurrence of such issues, there is a growing call for accelerated action. The incident highlights the fragility of relying on a single region for critical infrastructure, particularly when it comes to DNS management.
Expert Analysis and Future Implications
The incident raises concerns about the resilience of cloud services and the broader digital ecosystem. Experts suggest that the AWS US-EAST-1 region, which houses the digital phonebook (DNS) for much of its infrastructure, is particularly vulnerable to such outages:
“How many more AWS outages until the internet builds a real backup plan? It’s a simple question I asked a bunch of experts.
You see, chances are with this being a US-EAST-1 situation again, that it comes down to some DNS issues — the digital phonebook of the internet — which is currently all stored in this one location in North Virginia. That makes AWS’ infrastructure particularly fragile.”
The recurring nature of these outages underscores the need for more robust backup and disaster recovery strategies across cloud service providers.
