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By Deborah Mary Sophia and Shubham Kalia (Reuters) -Amazon's cloud services unit AWS was recovering on Monday from a widespread outage that knocked out thousands of websites along with some of the world's most popular apps – Snapchat and Reddit – and disrupted businesses globally. The turmoil marked the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, and highlights the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. After roughly three hours of disruptions, systems were gradually coming back online as of 6:00 a.m. ET (1000 GMT), with AWS saying it was seeing "significant signs of recovery" for some impacted services. "Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests," it said in the latest update on the outage posted on its status page. ISSUE SHOULD BE RESOLVED IN COMING HOURS, EXPERT SAYS AWS provides on-demand computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS competes with Google and Microsoft's cloud services. Asked for comment on the outage, AWS directed Reuters to its status page. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. Junade Ali, a software engineer, cyber expert and Fellow at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, said the issue appeared to be with one of the networking systems AWS uses to control a database product. "As this issue can usually be resolved centrally … unless there are further issues identified, the issue should be able to be mitigated over the coming hours," he said. INITIAL SIGNS OF RECOVERY Ookla, owner of outage tracking website Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. Issues on some apps and websites, including Snapchat, Roblox, streaming site Max and PayPal's Venmo were showing signs of easing, according to Downdetector. Snapchat last had over 4,000 reports on Downdetector, down from an earlier peak of more than 22,000, while reports on Roblox dropped to less than 500 from a peak of over 12,600. Other services, however, remained affected, with thousands of reports for social media app Reddit and financial platform Chime on Downdetector. AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit, although Downdetector last showed a decrease in severity. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, along with Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal's President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage as well, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. OUTAGE EXPOSES RISK OF DEPENDENCE ON HANDFUL OF PROVIDERS In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were also facing issues, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and how reliant they now are on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch causing havoc with business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, Director of Research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. While there has been no indication yet of a potential cyberattack behind Monday's outage, the scale of the disruption has fed speculation. "When anything like this happens, the concern that it's a cyber incident is understandable," said Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm Sophos. "AWS has a far-reaching and intricate footprint, so any issue can cause a major upset." (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Joe Bavier)

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By Ateev Bhandari and Arasu Kannagi Basil (Reuters) -Evernorth, a new crypto venture backed by digital asset firm Ripple, said on Monday it will list on the Nasdaq through a merger with blank-check firm Armada Acquisition Corp II and is expected to raise more than $1 billion in proceeds. The digital asset treasury will focus on accumulating XRP, a token linked to Ripple and the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to data from CoinGecko. The move comes months after Wall Street's top regulator ended a high-profile crypto lawsuit, which accused Ripple of selling unregistered securities to institutional investors. Under a crypto-friendly Trump administration, Ripple is looking to scale institutional adoption and presence of the XRP token in capital markets. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, will create the largest XRP publicly traded XRP treasury company, Evernorth said. As scores of companies continue to wrap crypto assets into equity, concerns are mounting over the spillover impact of a correction in the equities markets. Earlier this month, crypto assets suffered from their largest selloff ever after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with China. "I lost track around how many (asset holding plays) are there around Ethereum," Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla, a former Ripple executive, told Reuters in an interview. Birla added that he will be stepping down from Ripple's board as he joins Evernorth's. Japanese firm SBI, which was previously affiliated with SoftBank, is providing $200 million of the raise in exchange for equity. "We will look at acquisition opportunities," Birla said, adding that Evernorth will be hiring and building out an investment team as well. The deal also saw participation from Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and digital asset firms Pantera Capital and Kraken, which have a track record of funding such strategies. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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By Ateev Bhandari and Arasu Kannagi Basil (Reuters) -Evernorth, a new crypto venture backed by digital asset firm Ripple, said on Monday it will list on the Nasdaq through a merger with blank-check firm Armada Acquisition Corp II and is expected to raise more than $1 billion in proceeds. The digital asset treasury will focus on accumulating XRP, a token linked to Ripple and the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to data from CoinGecko. The move comes months after Wall Street's top regulator ended a high-profile crypto lawsuit, which accused Ripple of selling unregistered securities to institutional investors. Under a crypto-friendly Trump administration, Ripple is looking to scale institutional adoption and presence of the XRP token in capital markets. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, will create the largest XRP publicly traded XRP treasury company, Evernorth said. As scores of companies continue to wrap crypto assets into equity, concerns are mounting over the spillover impact of a correction in the equities markets. Earlier this month, crypto assets suffered from their largest selloff ever after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with China. "I lost track around how many (asset holding plays) are there around Ethereum," Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla, a former Ripple executive, told Reuters in an interview. Birla added that he will be stepping down from Ripple's board as he joins Evernorth's. Japanese firm SBI, which was previously affiliated with SoftBank, is providing $200 million of the raise in exchange for equity. "We will look at acquisition opportunities," Birla said, adding that Evernorth will be hiring and building out an investment team as well. The deal also saw participation from Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and digital asset firms Pantera Capital and Kraken, which have a track record of funding such strategies. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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(Reuters) -Amazon's cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage on Monday, causing connectivity issues for many companies around the world and disrupting services for several popular websites and apps including Fortnite and Snapchat. "We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region," AWS said in an update on its status page. AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood attributed the outages to AWS. "Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We're working on resolving it," Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X. AWS provides on-demand computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS competes with Google's and Microsoft's cloud services. AWS and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon's shopping website, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Roblox, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming sites that were down, while Paypal's Venmo and Chime were some of the financial platforms that faced issues, the outage tracking website said. Uber rival Lyft's app was also down for thousands of users in the U.S. Messaging app Signal's President Meredith Whittaker also confirmed on X that their platform was hit by the AWS outage as well. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair and Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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(This Oct 18 story has been refiled without any changes to the text.) By Raphael Satter WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. court has ordered Israel's NSO Group to stop targeting Meta Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service, a development the spyware company warned could put it out of business. In a 25-page ruling handed down Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton imposed a permanent injunction on NSO Group's efforts to break into WhatsApp, one of the world's most widely used communications platforms.  Hamilton also handed NSO a significant break on the damages awarded in a recently concluded jury trial, reducing the punitive damages it owes Meta from about $167 million to $4 million.  The injunction is likely to pose a challenge to NSO, which has for years been accused of facilitating human rights abuses through its flagship hacking tool, Pegasus.  Pegasus takes advantage of weaknesses in commonly deployed pieces of software to power its surveillance, making WhatsApp one of its bigger targets.  NSO has previously argued that an injunction preventing it from going after WhatsApp "would put NSO’s entire enterprise at risk" and "force NSO out of business," according to the judgment. Meta executives celebrated the decision. “Today’s ruling bans spyware maker NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again," WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart said on X. "We applaud this decision that comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting members of civil society." NSO, which has long insisted its products fight serious crime and terrorism, said it welcomed the 97% reduction in punitive damages and said that the injunction did not apply to NSO's customers, "who will continue using the company’s technology to help protect public safety." The company said it would review the decision and "determine its next steps accordingly.” The company was recently purchased by a group led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds, according to a report earlier this month in tech publication TechCrunch. Simonds did not immediately return an email. (Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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(Reuters) -The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a probe into about 2,000 Waymo robotaxis, the U.S. auto safety regulator said on Monday. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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(Reuters) -The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it has opened an investigation into about 2,000 Waymo self-driving vehicles after reports the robotaxis behaved unsafely near stopped school buses. NHTSA said, citing a media report, that in one incident a robotaxi initially stopped beside a school bus then drove around its front, passing the extended stop arm and crossing control arm as students were disembarking. Waymo did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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(Reuters) -The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it has opened a preliminary probe into about 2,000 Waymo self-driving vehicles after reports that the company's robotaxis may have failed to follow traffic safety laws around stopped school buses. The probe is the latest federal review of self-driving systems as regulators scrutinize how driverless technologies interact with pedestrians, cyclists and other road users. NHTSA said the Office of Defects Investigation opened the review after flagging a media report describing an incident in which a Waymo autonomous vehicle did not remain stationary when approaching a school bus with its red lights flashing, stop arm deployed and crossing control arm extended. The report said the Waymo vehicle initially stopped beside the bus then maneuvered around its front, passing the extended stop arm and crossing control arm while students were disembarking. A Waymo spokesperson said the company has “already developed and implemented improvements related to stopping for school buses and will land additional software updates in our next software release.” The company added "driving safely around children has always been one of Waymo's highest priorities. In the event referenced, the vehicle approached the school bus from an angle where the flashing lights and stop sign were not visible and drove slowly around the front of the bus before driving past it, keeping a safe distance from children." NHTSA said the vehicle involved was equipped with Waymo's fifth-generation Automated Driving System (ADS) and was operating without a human safety driver at the time of the incident. Waymo has said its robotaxi fleet numbers more than 1,500 vehicles operating across major U.S. cities, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin. The Alphabet-owned company also plans to expand internationally, with launches in cities including Tokyo and London in coming years. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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By Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A more than year-long digital intrusion into cybersecurity company F5, publicized last week and blamed on Chinese spies, has defenders across the industry hunting for signs of compromise among the many corporate networks that use its products. Several worry that more disclosures are coming. So far, little is known about the scope of the hack beyond statements from F5 that its source code and sensitive information about software vulnerabilities were stolen. The company's website says it serves more than four in five Fortune 500 companies in some capacity, and U.S. officials have said that federal networks were among those targeted in the hack's aftermath and have urged immediate action. That extensive presence alone has triggered widespread unease. F5's stock tumbled 12 percent last Thursday, the day it published a host of fixes for previously vulnerable products, although it rebounded slightly by the end of the week. Several cybersecurity executives and analysts compared the hack at F5 to the extraordinary intrusion at the software company SolarWinds discovered in December 2020. That company, whose Orion software was used for network monitoring, became the unwitting springboard into a number of highly sensitive networks after its source code was tampered with. Around a dozen government departments were eventually breached in the wide-ranging spy operation. Just like SolarWinds, which was little known in the consumer market before the hack, F5 has a host of tech equipment and services – load balancers, content delivery networks and firewalls – that typically play low-profile but critical roles in directing, managing and filtering organizations' internet traffic. "I'm not equating this to the SolarWinds attack, but I'm equating it to the fact that people never hear of it, but it's in everybody's network," said Michael Sikorski, the chief technology officer at Palo Alto Networks' threat intelligence-focused Unit 42. "When we're talking about 80 percent of the Fortune 500, we're talking about banks, law firms, tech companies, you name it." Sikorski said the F5 hackers stole source code and undisclosed vulnerability information, potentially giving them the ability to develop tools for cyberespionage in a tight time frame. Bob Huber, chief security officer of cybersecurity firm Tenable, said he too had SolarWinds in mind as he tried to make sense of what was going on at F5. "As of right now, this is not SolarWinds," he told Reuters, noting that F5 has said it had "no evidence of modification to our software supply chain." Still, Huber said there were signs that more unwelcome disclosures lie ahead, given the paucity of information about the breach and the urgency with which the government was moving to remediate it, via an October 15 emergency directive and a public warning that unnamed federal networks were being targeted by a "nation-state cyber threat actor." "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop," he said. While no other victims of the F5 breach have been publicly identified, cybersecurity firm Greynoise Intelligence, which monitors internet scanning and attack activity, has found hints that an unknown actor was searching out F5 devices on the internet starting about a month ago. Greynoise detected a major spike in scanning activity focused on F5 beginning in mid-September, according to Glenn Thorpe, the company's senior director of security research and detection engineering. "That implies someone somewhere knew something," Thorpe said. (Reporting by Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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(Reuters) -The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it has opened an investigation into about 2,000 Waymo self-driving vehicles after reports the robotaxis behaved unsafely near stopped school buses. NHTSA said, citing a media report, that in one incident a robotaxi initially stopped beside a school bus then drove around its front, passing the extended stop arm and crossing control arm as students were disembarking. Waymo did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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