{
  "id": 8886984,
  "title": "AWS Cannot Restore Data Held Only in Damaged Middle East Availability Zones",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/aws-cannot-restore-data-held-only-in-damaged-middle-east-availability",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T08:43:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "InfoQ",
    "slug": "infoq",
    "url": "https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/09/aws-middle-east-data-loss/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Amazon Web Services (AWS) informed customers that it cannot restore data exclusively held in damaged availability zones within its Middle East (UAE) me-central-1 and Middle East (Bahrain) me-south-1 regions following conflict with Iran. AWS determined that the damage in Bahrain exceeded the capacity of its regional and multi-AZ services to withstand, preventing access restoration for resources and data hosted only in mec1-az2 availability zone. The assessment also covered the entire Bahrain region, as the damage spanned multiple availability zones and surpassed what their regional and multi-AZ services were designed to handle. AWS is replacing the affected infrastructure, notifying relevant authorities, and updating service restoration status in the coming months, with further details on Bahrain in early 2027. The incident highlights the importance of implementing proper redundancy and geo-redundancy strategies to prevent data loss during catastrophic events.",
  "summary": "AWS has told customers it cannot restore resources and data hosted exclusively in the mec1-az2 availability zone in the UAE, or exclusively in the Bahrain region, after damage during the conflict with Iran. The company says the Bahrain damage spanned multiple availability zones and exceeded what its regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand. By Steef-Jan Wiggers",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "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."
}