What changed
Drone and missile strikes have caused significant damage to data centers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, disrupting cloud services for millions and resulting in the permanent deletion of some Amazon Web Services customer data. These attacks represent a new threat to digital infrastructure, with implications for both Big Tech companies and governments.
What this means in practice
The attacks have led to service outages and data loss, highlighting the vulnerability of cloud infrastructure to kinetic threats. Joseph Jarnecki, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), will discuss the implications of these strikes in a live conversation on November 17. He has studied how Ukraine improved its cloud resilience during the Russian invasion and analyzed the impact of Iran’s drone strikes on Amazon data centers in the Middle East.
Limitations and availability
The supplied announcement does not specify the exact number of affected data centers or the full extent of service disruptions. It also does not detail the specific measures being taken to improve cloud resilience against such attacks. The discussion will explore whether defending data centers against drones and missiles is feasible and how cloud providers can enhance resiliency in wartime conditions.
