A series of fiber optic cable outages in the Red Sea this week disrupted internet services across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The disruption temporarily slowed Microsoftâs Azure platform.
On Saturday, Microsoft confirmed that its Azure cloud platform experienced service interruptions linked to âundersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.â Customers whose data traffic crossed through the Middle East reported latency spikes and routing delays. The company said its engineering teams responded by rerouting traffic and optimizing pathways to minimize customer impact. Later, the tech titan confirmed that it was no longer detecting platform issues and Azure is functioning as usual once again.
The incident was not limited to Azure. NetBlocks, an independent internet observatory, reported degraded connectivity in multiple countries, including India and Pakistan. The group attributed the outages to simultaneous cuts in several submarine cables routed through the Red Sea corridor. Analysts confirmed that three systems (SEACOM/TGN-EA, AAE-1, and EIG) were among those affected. These cables form part of an extensive intercontinental grid carrying nearly 17 percent of global internet traffic between Europe and Asia. The concentration of so many systems through a narrow passage has made the Red Sea one of the worldâs most critical choke points for communications.
Thus, disruptions in this corridor can reverberate across continents, affecting businesses, governments, and consumers alike. The latest development also reveals vulnerabilities that can destabilize financial transactions, disrupt government communications, and hinder access to cloud-dependent services globally. Economies increasingly reliant on real-time data flows face risks when digital arteries are cut, as delays in trade logistics, financial settlements, and even critical healthcare and security operations may suffer
The cause of the outages has not yet been confirmed. There are two possible scenarios: accidental damage from commercial ship anchors in shallow waters, or deliberate interference amid escalating regional tensions. The Red Sea has seen repeated attacks on shipping by Yemenâs Houthi movement, which has used missile and drone strikes to disrupt commercial vessels in protest against the conflict in Gaza. While the Houthis have denied targeting communications infrastructure, their campaign has already created volatility in one of the worldâs busiest maritime routes.
Beyond wartime risks, natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and even undersea volcanic eruptions have historically damaged cables, illustrating how fragile and multi-dimensional the risk landscape is for global data corridors. Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, repairs in deep water often require rare expertise and equipment, leaving major economies vulnerable to prolonged disruptions if multiple hazards strike simultaneously.
Repairing submarine cables is a complex and time-consuming process. Specialized ships must locate the break, retrieve the damaged section from the seabed, and splice the line. Depending on location and security conditions, this process can take several weeks. In the Red Sea, the risks are amplified by ongoing conflict and restricted access to repair zones. Industry observers warn that future disruptions could last longer if conditions worsen or if multiple lines are damaged simultaneously.
The global cloud ecosystem depends on more than 400 submarine cable systems, most of which run through narrow maritime corridors vulnerable to both accident and conflict. Even with investments in redundancy, simultaneous breaks at chokepoints such as the Red Sea can overwhelm backup capacity, producing noticeable service degradation. Looking ahead, emerging technologies may reshape the risk landscape. AI-driven network monitoring can detect anomalies in traffic patterns and reroute data more intelligently during disruptions, reducing downtime. Quantum communications, though still developing, promise greater resilience and security by providing alternative transmission channels, particularly for sensitive government and defense data.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. For example, the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and subsequent damage to Baltic cables raised alarms in Europe about infrastructure security. Similarly, repeated incidents in the South China Sea have drawn attention to vulnerabilities in Asiaâs digital arteries.
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