Several Large Companies Experience Service Outages
In addition to Slack and Zoom, we noticed several large companies with service issues. These companies include AWS, the programming platform GitHub and other large, tech corporations such as Google, Spectrum, and Verizon. We also see a similar peak of reported outages with Microsoft Teams, Gmail, and other communication services from the same time.
Single Point of Failure?
Many of these services rely on a few central internet hubs or hosting giants (such as AWS) to serve large volumes of users. A persistent technical problem or a targeted attack on these core services can therefore disrupt the operation of many other services in one fell swoop. The rising line of complaints about AWS seems to be the culprit in this case. To paint a picture, AWS controls more than 30% of the global web hosting market, earning over $40 billion a year. This means that many of the world’s largest websites rely on AWS’s services. Think of communication services such as Slack, but also business websites and the government infrastructure of many countries fall under the umbrella of AWS.
DDOS or Technical Problem?
At the time of writing, the cause of the outage is still undetermined, but services appear to be coming back online. “We’re seeing signs of improvement. Please try reloading Slack, and if not a cache reset. We’re still monitoring the situation. We’ll confirm once this issue is fully resolved.” Slack Tweeted shortly after noon EST. The cause of the failure is still a matter of speculation. It could have been anything from a simple technical failure to an attack by cybercriminals who want to shut things down in a targeted manner. Whether it was a brute force attack, a trojan virus, or just some programming error, this outage has caused this Two’s Day (2/22/22) to be one to remember, but not necessarily in a good way.
