AWS cloud operations in Bahrain hit for 2nd time in targeted Iran strike

Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing operation, was reportedly struck in Bahrain on Wednesday – fulfilling the IRGC’s promise to physically target major Western tech companies, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and more, on April 1st.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry announced the damage on Wednesday, saying that its civil defense force was “extinguishing a fire in a facility of a company as a result of the Iranian aggression,” according to the Financial Times, which says it spoke with a person familiar with the matter.

The ministry did not immediately provide details on the company involved, casualties, or the extent of damage, the media outlet said.

Ministry officials later said civil defense teams extinguished the fire in Muharraq Governorate without any injuries.

Second AWS hit in a month

It's the second time Amazon’s cloud computing arm in the Persian Gulf nation suffered physical damage, with its first Iranian drone strike targeting Bahraini AWS operations taking place in early March, alongside attacks on two Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

On March 1st–2nd, AWS said two UAE facilities were directly struck, while in Bahrain, a drone strike in close proximity to one AWS facility caused physical impact to its infrastructure.

Reuters also reported on March 24th that AWS said the Bahrain region was disrupted by drone activity, although it remains unclear what weapon, if any, was responsible for the Wednesday strike.

The AWS Health Dashboard on Wednesday continued to show service disruptions tied to the previous March attacks in Bahrain and the UAE, but did not appear to list a separate April 1st incident at the time of this report.

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The dashboard includes both current and historical status reports for AWS services by region, according to the site.

In Bahrain, 34 out of 39 impacted AWS services have been marked resolved. In the UAE, 25 AWS services were listed as disrupted and another 34 as degraded, while only three of the 51 services were shown to be fully resolved.

IRGC expands threats to big tech

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warned on its Telegram channel that it would begin attacking big US tech companies across the Middle East starting at 8:00 p.m. Iran Time (IT) / 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (ET).

The IRGC named 18 technology, defense, and financial behemoths, including Cisco, Google, Apple, Meta, IBM, and Nvidia, as well as Palantir, JPMorgan, Boeing, and Tesla – although ironically, Amazon was not mentioned as one of the targets on its wish list.

The IRGC also listed 29 facilities across the Gulf, urging local employees to evacuate. Sixteen of the global companies are US-based, with Spire Solutions and G42, both from the UAE.

Amazon has not commented on Wednesday's reported attack, but last week advised cloud customers to direct traffic away from Bahrain and the UAE, back up their data, and consider migrating workloads to other regions.

The e-commerce giant had publicly acknowledged the previous attacks on its Bahrain data centers, citing structural damage, power disruptions, and limited water damage from firefighting efforts.

Some popular AWS applications also reported experiencing “elevated error rates and degraded availability” due to the incident.

As more Americans question the US launch of Operation Epic Fury in partnership with Israel on February 28th, President Trump is scheduled to address the nation Wednesday night, according to a White House announcement posted earlier in the day.

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