Amazon told AWS customers to move applications out of Bahrain after another service disruption hit the country on Monday, the second such incident this month, as drone attacks linked to the Middle East conflict keep hitting the region’s digital backbone.
AWS also told customers to place applications in other AWS Regions and said it had already helped a large number of users do that.
Amazon tells customers to leave Bahrain systems after another disruption
An Amazon Web Services spokesperson allegedly said that the company was working with local authorities while trying to recover service and protect staff on the ground.
“We are working closely with local authorities and prioritizing the safety of our personnel throughout our recovery efforts,” the spokesperson said.
Earlier in March, AWS said it had service disruptions tied to the Iran conflict in both Bahrain and the UAE. In the UAE, two AWS facilities were directly struck by drones. In Bahrain, a drone strike landed near company facilities and caused physical damage, which Cryptopolitan previously reported led to reported outages affecting apps and digital services in the UAE, showing how fast a hit on cloud infrastructure can spill into daily business operations.
This time, Amazon straight-up told customers to get workloads out and place them elsewhere.
For companies that run on the cloud, that can mean changing databases, rerouting traffic, starting backup capacity in another region, and trying to keep user-facing services online while the affected site is being recovered.
AWS said many customers had already been helped through that process.
Cyber threats from Iran, Russia, China keep growing across cloud and critical systems
The latest disruption also came as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, warned in its Annual Threat Assessment 2026 that cyberspace is now a main arena of conflict.
The report said state and nonstate actors are actively targeting U.S. interests and combining espionage, disruption, and influence in coordinated operations. It said groups linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, along with ransomware gangs, continue to threaten critical infrastructure at scale.
The ODNI said these adversaries can pre-position access or carry out disruptive and destructive attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure and other targets. It said they continue to spend heavily to compromise U.S. systems and core global IT resources.
The report called China the most active and persistent cyber threat to the U.S. government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks.
It then said Russia remains a persistent and advanced cyber and foreign intelligence threat. It also said both countries are still investing in research, development, and pre-positioning to improve top-tier cyber attack capabilities for use against the U.S.
On Iran, the report said the threat includes both cyber espionage and cyber attacks against U.S. networks and infrastructure. It also said Iranian operators have already shown they can hit weaker targets with real effect, including Albania. The report said:-
“Iran maintains a persistent intent to target the U.S. and its allies and partners with cyber operations despite the challenges it faced most recently on display during the 12-Day War in 2025.”
It added that Iranian proxies and hacktivists outside Iran will also seek cyber-enabled operations against U.S. targets, though those attacks will probably be less advanced.
It also cited a March 11 claim by a hacking group linked to Iran, which said it attacked a U.S. medical technology company, erased 200,000 systems, and stole 50 terabytes of data.
The report also said North Korea runs a sophisticated and agile cyber program and uses IT workers with fake credentials to get hired by unsuspecting companies.
It said Pyongyang uses cyber espionage, cybercrime, and cyber attacks to dodge sanctions, steal money for its military, and gather intelligence for weapons programs. It added that cryptocurrency theft and other financial crimes bring in at least $1 billion a year for the regime.
The ODNI also warned that ransomware groups, cyber criminals, and hacktivists are taking more aggressive positions, with faster and higher-volume attacks that hurt business operations, cut revenue, and steal sensitive data. It ended with another warning: keeping a global lead in artificial intelligence is critical for the U.S. as rival powers keep closing the gap.