AWS Outage Poses an Opportunity for Scammers

Did you find yourself affected by yesterday’s AWS outage?

The outage, which is yet to be explained by Amazon Web Services, impacted banking apps like Lloyds and Halifax, social media platforms like Snapchat, transport apps like Lyft, and over 1000 other digital companies, rendering them out of action for up to 15 hours.

Outages like this pose an opportunity for hackers, with many taking advantage of application crashes to launch attacks, especially in the case of online banking systems.

Consumer Champion Matt Allwright said:

“Just ask yourself how important it is to make that transaction right now. If the answer is that it’s very important, then get in touch with your bank directly using a number that you trust. The last thing you want to do is entertain a phone call out of the blue right now saying I can offer you a solution.”

Urgency and panic impact your judgement and make you more susceptible to scams, so it’s important to stay calm and think clearly. If you’re ever unsure about the validity of contact, get in touch with our cyber security team who would be happy to assist. If you want to get better at spotting scams, our cyber awareness training is a great way to increase your confidence.

And if the worst happens, Zenzero’s cyber security branch, Zensec, can help you get back on your feet. They’re experts in ransomware recovery, incident response, and cyber crisis management.

AWS have confirmed they’ll explain the cause of the outage soon. You can keep up with the story here.