Hundreds of websites and apps flickered offline across North America and Europe after an AWS disruption in its North Virginia region, before largely returning as the U.S. woke up. Amazon Music, Prime Video, Alexa and services from Signal to Disney+, Roblox and more were hit. AWS reported network connectivity problems in US-EAST-1, early recovery, and no confirmed cause. Experts warned the fallout will linger, from payment confusion and chargebacks to the need for multi-regional redundancy, urging merchants to notify users, sweep for duplicate charges, and issue prompt refunds.

Prepared by Jonathan Pierce and reviewed by editorial team.