Amazon fixing bug that billed some AWS customers billions of dollars
Customers of Amazon Web Services discovered abnormally high billing estimates in their accounts on Friday morning, with some users shown charges exceeding billions of dollars for services they had not actually used. The malfunction originated in Amazon's billing calculation infrastructure, surfacing late Thursday and persisting after the company's initial rollback attempt failed to restore accuracy.
Amazon acknowledged the pricing discrepancies and assured affected customers that these estimates bore no relationship to genuine charges or actual consumption. The company offered sparse additional detail regarding the fault's cause or whether any accounts had been suspended as a consequence, estimating that restoration would require several additional hours of investigation.
In short
- AWS customers encountered false billing alerts ranging from millions to billions of dollars on Friday due to a bug in Amazon's billing computation system
- Amazon confirmed the inflated charges do not reflect actual usage and pledged to resolve the issue within hours
Explained simply
Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform used by millions of businesses and organisations worldwide. It provides computing power, storage and other services that customers pay for based on how much they actually use, so accurate billing is crucial for managing costs.
On Friday morning, many AWS customers discovered drastically inflated billing estimates in their accounts, with some shown charges in the billions for services they had never actually used. The fault originated in Amazon's billing system late Thursday and persisted even after the company's initial attempt to fix it failed.
Amazon confirmed the figures were incorrect and assured customers they would not be charged these displayed amounts. The company said restoring full accuracy would take several more hours, though it provided limited information about what had caused the fault.