According to AWS’s official status dashboard update, two facilities in the UAE were directly struck by drones, while one facility in Bahrain sustained physical damage from a nearby drone strike.

The company stated: “These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage.”

This marks one of the first publicly confirmed physical military attacks on a major hyperscale cloud provider’s infrastructure.

The incidents affected the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region (ME-CENTRAL-1) and the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region (ME-SOUTH-1), leading to outages and degraded performance for services including EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, and RDS.

AWS has described the recovery as prolonged and unpredictable due to ongoing regional instability.

Customers have been advised to activate disaster recovery plans and migrate workloads to other AWS regions where possible.

Impact on Businesses and Users

The attacks caused service interruptions for banks, delivery apps, government services, and enterprises across the Gulf that depend on these availability zones.

With data centres becoming strategic targets in modern conflicts, this incident highlights the physical vulnerabilities of cloud infrastructure, even for tech giants like Amazon.

AWS and local authorities have not reported casualties from the strikes.

For African businesses and developers heavily reliant on AWS; common for Nigerian fintechs, startups, and enterprises routing through global cloud providers, this serves as a reminder of geopolitical risks.

Experts recommend multi-region redundancy and regular failover testing to avoid similar disruptions.

Amazon has not released detailed images or extent of damage, citing security reasons.

Recovery efforts were reported as making progress in some areas, but full restoration timelines remain unclear.

Two availability zones in the UAE lost power, while Bahrain experienced connectivity issues. AWS said recovery for both regions could take “many hours,” advising customers to rely on services in other regions while it works to restore power and connectivity.

The UAE incident occurred after sparks and fire were triggered at one of the cloud provider’s zones, prompting an immediate shutdown of power in the affected areas. 

AWS did not confirm whether the outages were related to recent Iranian retaliatory strikes on neighbouring Gulf states, including the UAE and Bahrain, in response to U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

The outages coincided with other challenges across regions, as Iranian strikes in the Gulf damaged infrastructure, including Dubai airport and the Burj Al Arab hotel, prompting questions about the possible link to AWS disruptions.

Separately, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) reported technical issues affecting its platforms and mobile app users on Monday. 

While the bank did not confirm a direct link to AWS, the timing points to possible ripple effects from the data centre outages.

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The FLOOSS card enrolment is simple and doesn’t require opening a bank account. Customers can deposit, withdraw, and transfer funds between accounts quickly and easily, keeping track of all purchases made with their wallet or card.

The FLOOSS app allows customers to set reminders for outstanding bills and the ‘add-to-cart’ feature is an all-at-once payment point.

Further services available through the app include: utility bill payments, telecom services (top-up, bill payments and enquiry), gift vouchers for gaming and entertainment, in addition to calling cards. User data is safe thanks to the adoption of high security standards and the implementation of cutting-edge security technologies to protect sensitive information including purchase history and account information.

Fawaz Ghazal, CEO of Payment International Enterprise, said: “FLOOSS is a financial platform built to deliver a more efficient banking experience. We are bringing a better way to manage money in an alternative to the traditional payment system. With a proven track record of collaborating with fintechs across the region and wider world, Mastercard is a great partner for this venture, with technological expertise to ensure the successful launch of FLOOSS in Bahrain and the region.”

Digital payment platforms represent an alternative to traditional banking services by offering a virtual system with the same range of products and services, either through an online platform or a mobile app, so customers won’t ever need to visit a branch. The business model focuses completely on eliminating cash and promoting digital paperless transactions.

J.K. Khalil, Country Manager, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Levant, Mastercard said: “Growing the domestic payment ecosystem is crucial for the development of a robust digital economy that is also more inclusive to the communities it serves. A key success factor for regional economies when it comes to leveraging the growth of e-commerce and advancing financial inclusion is the youth segment that is shaping the future of our economies. This partnership reinforces Mastercard’s position as the go-to player in digital payments and inclusive use cases in the region.”

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The number of POS and ecommerce transactions in Bahrain topped $3.62 billion in the first half of 2021, according to the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB).