Tech Companies Increasingly Targeted as Satellite Images Back Up Latest Claims of Iran Strike on Amazon Data Centers

Amazon and other owners of vital civilian data centers may need government protection after Iran has called them legitimate targets in its conflict with America. Satellite data confirms that two Amazon Web Services data centers in Bahrain suffered damage last week after missile attacks in a deliberate expansion of Iran’s effort to inflict collateral damage on public and private infrastructure.A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Sardar Mohebbi told the government-linked Tasnim News Agency, that “a major information-processing asset of the enemy” was attacked because of its support of American military operations.Western satellite imagery shows damage to the two Amazon Web Services centers at the Bahraini cities of Zallaq and Askar, Bloomberg News reported. The American government has sought to block the release of satellite imagery related to the conflict over security concerns.The head of a Lithuania-based defense technology company, Aktyvus Photonics, suggests that data centers, while mainly serving civilian purposes, are easy targets. “Commercial cloud facilities were never designed to sit inside a kinetic threat environment, and now they are being treated as legitimate military targets,” the firm’s chief executive officer, Laurynas Šatas, said.Mr. Šatas said data center operators can plan their own defense against slow or low-flying drones that can be easily disabled — as Ukraine’s private sector has shown it is capable of doing in its defense against Russian drones — but high-speed ballistic missiles are a military function requiring a government response. “That changes the security conversation for the whole industry,” Mr. Šatas said.Neither Amazon nor the Kingdom of Bahrain immediately returned requests for comment over the targeting of facilities or the extent of damage, but data centers are increasingly a high-value target for the Islamic regime, which must fight asymmetrically against the United States to maintain any leverage.That fight includes not only strikes on U.S. military bases in the region but also drone strikes on shipping as well as attacks on dual-purpose airports, energy production facilities, and even tourist hubs in Gulf nations. This week Iran targeted two tankers in an Egyptian port while Iranian-backed militias based in Iraq are said to be responsible for attacks on Saudi oil facilities. U.S. Central Command said it also intercepted incoming ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forces in the region. The United States and Saudi Arabia responded Wednesday with attacks on the Iraqi-based fighters. On Wednesday afternoon, President Trump promised a strong response to the latest barrage. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them. They know it’s coming,” the president said during an unrelated event at the White House.Iran has claimed responsibility for previous strikes on Amazon sites in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Amazon announced in early March, shortly after the onset of the conflict, that the AWS Bahrain Region was “disrupted” after being hit with drones and bank payment systems, among other services, had been knocked offline. The company said the drones damaged three facilities and it was “working closely with local authorities and prioritizing the safety of our personnel throughout our recovery efforts.” Later that month, Amazon said its data center cluster in Bahrain had suffered an outage and customers should recover data from backups at other sites. In early April, Amazon added that its customers should move their resources to other regions while it seeks to restore normal operations, which could take months.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has warned 18 U.S. tech companies, including Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Nvidia, and Oracle, that it would consider them legitimate targets for assisting U.S. and Israeli operations with artificial intelligence for war simulations and other support. As the Middle East seeks to build its infrastructure with the construction of hundreds of data centers backed by billions of dollars in investments, last week’s attack on Amazon threatens to drag unwitting customers, data center workers, and possibly many other bystanders into the conflict.Mr. Šatas said that as data centers are deliberately targeted and not just caught in the crossfire, tech companies will “require significantly more complex and far more expensive systems, which we cannot realistically expect a commercial operator to afford, or to be cleared and trained to operate.” Mr. Šatas suggested that data centers coordinate with governments to address missile threats in battle zones where data centers are located. “I expect this level of protection to become a standard part of how such sites are built and operated,” he said.

Tech Companies Increasingly Targeted as Satellite Images Back Up Latest Claims of Iran Strike on Amazon Data Centers

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