AWS Fixed Bug That Caused Customers to Receive Bills for Billions of Dollars

The largest cloud provider, Amazon Web Services, encountered a serious technical failure that led to erroneous bills for some customers. On Friday, users discovered notifications in their accounts for debts ranging from several million to $2.5 billion, despite no actual service consumption.

AWS representatives confirmed the issue, stating it was caused by an incorrect update to the cost calculation subsystem. The first signs of the failure appeared late Thursday evening, and by Friday morning, it became clear that rolling back the changes did not resolve the problem. The company promptly updated its status page, assuring customers that the billed amounts did not reflect actual resource usage.

On forums, including Reddit, users shared screenshots of incredible sums in their accounts. One customer received a bill for nearly $2.5 billion for the current month, while others reported debts in the hundreds of millions. The incident lasted several hours, but by the end of the day, the billing system was restored.

AWS did not disclose details about the cause of the failure or the number of affected customers. The company emphasized that the error did not impact actual fund deductions and that all calculations would be adjusted to reflect real resource consumption.