Amazon Web Services (AWS) has officially stated that some customer data stored in its Middle Eastern data centers has been permanently lost due to war-related damages. This marks a significant incident where military actions have led to irreversible data loss for a major global cloud provider.
Impact of Iranian Drone Strikes
Six months after Iranian drone attacks disabled several AWS data centers, the company confirmed the permanent loss of data in its facilities located in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). AWS made this disclosure in an update to its Health Dashboard on September 15, indicating that it cannot recover data housed exclusively in the affected locations.
According to reports from Reuters, these strikes caused severe, irrecoverable damage to AWS’s infrastructure. This announcement is AWS’s first public acknowledgment since April, clearly stating that some data losses are indeed permanent.
Extent of Damage in UAE and Bahrain
The UAE experienced significant damage in one of its three availability zones, specifically mec1-az2, leading to irretrievable data loss. AWS continues efforts to restore services in other affected zones, mec1-az1 and mec1-az3, despite the challenges faced.
In Bahrain, the situation is dire as AWS admitted that it cannot restore access to resources across the entire me-south-1 region. The damage surpassed the capabilities of AWS’s regional and multi-AZ (availability zone) services, which are typically designed to handle the failure of a single zone.
Background and Future Considerations
The disruptions began in March after U.S. and Israeli military actions prompted Iran to retaliate with missile and drone strikes targeting Gulf states with U.S. military installations. Two AWS centers in the UAE were directly hit, and a nearby Bahrain facility suffered infrastructure damage.
This incident underscores the importance of shared responsibility in cloud computing. AWS pointed out that most clients managed to resume operations by leveraging backups in different regions, but those who solely relied on the impacted zones without external backups faced complete data loss.
AWS advises organizations to audit their cloud assets to ensure they are not solely located in the affected regions. The company has informed authorities in both countries, suspended regional billing, and plans to provide further updates on the UAE later this year and on Bahrain by early 2027.
