Chaos as massive Google outage crashes banking apps, NHS and court service all affected

A huge outage has hit hundreds of websites and apps due to an issue with the Google Cloud service. Several banking apps, Royal Mail and Rightmove are just some of the services affected by the outage, which began at around 7am BST this morning. According to Google, the London region is affected but, there are reports of disruption from around the world. The tech giant said its engineering team is investigating the ⁠issue, which affected the London-based europe-west2 data center.In a message on its Cloud Status page, Google says: 'We are experiencing an issue with multiple services in europe-west2", and says that the issues began around 07:00 BST (23:08 PDT).'Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue.' A huge outage has hit hundreds of websites and apps due to an issue with the Google Cloud service According to Down Detector, which tracks service outages, sites experiencing issues include Rightmove, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Revolut, HSBC, and Royal MailAccording to Down Detector, which tracks service outages, sites experiencing issues include Rightmove, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Revolut, HSBC, and Royal Mail.However, the issues also extend to vital services such as NHS England and the courts.According to the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), the outage has 'hampered' barristers' efforts to clear the court backlogs.In a post on X, the CBA wrote: 'Cloud Video Platform (CVP) is down across large parts of England and Wales since 10am.'Many of us today, both as prosecution and defence counsel, can not proceed with trials and other hearings. Our work to clear backlogs is hampered.'Likewise, HM Courts and Tribunals Service wrote on X: 'We're aware of an issue affecting Cloud Video Platform (CVP), used for some remote hearings.' A large number of banking apps have also been affected, leaving users unable to send or receive payments. By 9.00am, Down Detector showed 480 user-submitted reports of disruption affecting the Lloyds Bank app and website. According to the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), the outage has 'hampered' barristers' efforts to clear the court backlogs The outage appears to have caused disruption for a wide range of websites, potentially affecting millions of users Of those affected customers, 36 per cent said they were unable to log in, 31 per cent said they could not use online banking, while a further 25 per cent said they could not use the app. The banking app Revolut also appeared to be partially affected, with customers worldwide unable to open the app, send money, or even make card payments.On X, one frustrated commenter complained: This morning: Can't buy breakfast. Car is stuck in a paid carpark. Can't pay for taxi or scooter as backup. Probably should be carrying some cash.' 'Nothing like being stuck in the middle of a city in Japan, unable to pay for literally anything and having to cancel my beauty appointments because my bank @Revolut is having a massive outage,' wrote another.While one customer said: 'I’m at a petrol station in Australia. Can’t pay for my fuel that I just put in my car.. so I’m just standing in the petrol station highly embarrassed and can’t get home to my kids.'According to Down Detector, issues began around 8.00am this morning and quickly escalated as users shared hundreds of outage reports.By 8.02am, Revolut had over 1,458 reports of service disruption.Of those 62 per cent of customers said they were having problems with the app, 22 per cent with funds transfer, and nine per cent with mobile banking. The banking app Revolut also appeared to be partially affected, with customers worldwide unable to open the app, send money, or even make card paymentsIn a post shared on X earlier today, Revolut says: 'We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services. We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe. 'We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused.'Marijus Briedis, Chief Technology Officer at NordVPN, told the Daily Mail: 'When a cloud outage leaves people unable to make payments or access everyday services, it exposes how much we depend on infrastructure we never see.'For everyday Google users, this dependence can mean several services they rely on suddenly being unavailable at the same time. Someone unable to pay through one banking app may find their alternative is affected too.' Mr Briedis adds that the enormous scope of Google's cloud computing services means that outages might affect business whose customers have no idea they depend on the company at all.Cloud computing is where companies pay providers like Google and Amazon to handle their data management, storage, and networking at large data centres.These services are typically far cheaper for companies than managing their own servers, and typically extremely reliable.However, when a major provider does experience a problem, it can have have massive cascading effects due to the number of companies affected.This outage is the latest in a string of serious service disruptions that have affected cloud services over the last few years. Last year, both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services saw major outages that brought 'half the internet' to a standstill.Together, Amazon and Microsoft's vast data centres, known as 'hyperscalers', host over 60 per cent of the world's cloud services.So when there is a problem, almost everyone around the world feels the impact.