{
  "id": 8085822,
  "title": "Customer Data Permanently Lost in Iran Strikes on Amazon Data Centers",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/17/customer-data-permanently-lost-in-iran-strikes-on-amazon-data-centers",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-17T19:15:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Wired Business",
    "slug": "wired-business",
    "url": "https://www.wired.com/story/customer-data-permanently-lost-in-iran-strikes-on-amazon-data-centers/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "On September 15, Amazon Web Services disclosed that some of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates had been permanently damaged during Iranian strikes, leading to the loss of customer data. The AWS dashboard update confirmed that access to resources and data in one of the three availability zones in the UAE, mec1-az2, could not be restored. The company is still working to recover resources in the remaining two availability zones in the UAE. However, the damage was even more severe for the Amazon data centers in Bahrain, as access to resources and data across all three availability zones could not be restored. The destruction spread across multiple availability zones, exceeding the capacity of AWS's regional and multi-AZ services to withstand. AWS had already suspended customer billing in the affected regions in Bahrain and the UAE, and had been attempting to restore normal operations for the past six months. The Iranian strikes began on March 1, with the first attack on Amazon data centers occurring during the initial days of the ongoing war that started with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28. The cloud service urged customers to migrate resources to other cloud regions and use remote backups to restore any inaccessible resources. AWS had already provided $150 million in customer credits following the initial Iranian strikes in March. A subsequent Iranian strike in April targeted the Bahrain region, but most affected customers had already migrated their cloud computing workloads elsewhere. The latest AWS update acknowledged the disruption caused by the second availability zone strike in Bahrain in April, but most affected customers had already taken the recommended actions. On July 24, Iran launched another strike specifically targeting a remaining Amazon data center structure in Bahrain, which was confirmed by satellite imagery. AWS remains committed to supporting its Bahrain customers in the long term and promises to share a further update in early 2027. The ongoing war between the US, Israel, and Iran has expanded into a broader regional conflict and a global energy crisis due to attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. However, one positive outcome has been the increased global interest in renewable power generation, such as solar rooftop panels.",
  "summary": "Amazon Web Services didn’t design its data centers to withstand war, and now the company admits it can’t recover what’s been lost.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Wired",
        "title": "Customer Data Permanently Lost in Iran Strikes on Amazon Data Centers",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/17/customer-data-permanently-lost-in-iran-strikes-on-amazon-data-centers-8086987",
        "published": "2026-09-17T19:15:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}