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Topics: Technology, World News
Callum Jones
A cybersecurity expert has issued a warning for people to 'stay alert' following a major worldwide internet outage dominating the headlines this morning.
Many people woke up today (October 20) to widespread disruption with some of their most-used apps and services unavailable.
The likes of Amazon Web Services, Snapchat, Canva, Duolingo, and Ring have experienced outages, while Roblox, Clash Royale, Life360, My Fitness Pal, Xero, Amazon Music, Prime Video, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, Wordle, Coinbase, HMRC, PlayStation and Pokémon Go are also said to have been impacted.
While these apps and companies are not often associated with one another, the issues seem to be linked to Amazon Web Services.
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Engineers were 'immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue and fully understanding the root cause'.
Charlotte Wilson, Head of Enterprise at cybersecurity company CheckPoint, has since issued a warning following the worldwide internet outage.
As per Sky News, she said: "A local fault can ripple worldwide in minutes. We've built convenience on shared systems, but resilience still depends on people and process."
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The tech expert went on to say it's a good idea to keep backups of key files and information, and expressed the need for people to 'stay alert'.
She continued: "Stay alert for scams or phishing attempts - especially when banking sites are down - and never click links or share details you don’t recognise."
The cybersecurity head honcho went on to offer advice to businesses amid the ongoing uncertainty.
"Test your failovers, train your teams and plan for downtime before it arrives," Wilson added.
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"When companies rush to restore access, systems and staff are stretched thin - and that's when attackers strike.
"Expect a spike in fake 'refund' or 'discount' offers, phishing emails, and scam links claiming to fix the problem. Because the internet may be global, but resilience starts local - with what each of us does next."
Amazon Web Services is now saying it's seeing 'recovery across most of the affected AWS Services', with the problems said to be stemming from its data centre in Northern Virginia.
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"We continue to work towards full resolution and will provide updates as we have more information to share," the company added in a statement.
As well as impacting apps such as Snapchat and Duolingo, US media is reporting that the outage is affecting airlines.
The New York Times reports long check-in queues have been reported at LaGuardia airport as some reservations were not showing up on booking systems.