Microsoft Corp. said Saturday it’s no longer detecting issues with its Azure cloud platform after multiple international cables in the Red Sea were cut, Engadget reported.
Microsoft said its Azure cloud platform has returned to normal service after an incident of cut underwater cables that played out over Saturday. The tech giant reported “undersea fiber cuts” in the Red Sea on Saturday morning, which disrupted Azure service throughout the Middle Eat and led to potential “increased latency” for users.
Microsoft said that the latency issue was resolved by Saturday evening and was able to reroute the Azure traffic through other paths.
Microsoft didn’t provide a reason for why the undersea cables were cut. These cables sit on the ocean floor and play the crucial role of delivering massive amounts of data across the world.
While ships dropping anchors can sometimes damage undersea cables, there have been more international circumstances in the past. In 2024, the internationally recognized government of Yemen claimed that the country’s Houthi movement was responsible for cutting cables in the Red Sea.
The Associated Press reported: United cable cuts in the Red Sea disrupted international access is parts of Asia and the Middle East, experts said Sunday, though it was not immediately clear what caused the incident.
There has been concern about the cables being targeted in a Red Sea campaign by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which the rebels describe as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the Houthis have denied attacking the lines in the past.
Undersea cables are one of the backbones of the internet, along with satellite connections and land-based cables. Typically, internet service providers have multiple access points and reroute traffic if one fails, though it can slow down access for users.
Microsoft announced via a status website that the Mideast “may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.” The Redmond, Washington-based firm did not immediately elaborate, though it said that internet traffic not moving through the Middle East “is not impacted.”
TechCrunch reported: Microsoft said Saturday that clients of its Azure platform might experience increased latency after multiple undersea cables were cut in the Red Sea, as reported in Bloomberg.
In a status update, the company said traffic going through the Middle East or ending in Asia or Europe had been affected. It did not say who had cut the cables or why.
“Undersea fiber cuts can take time to repair, such as we continuously monitor, rebalance and optimize routing to reduce customer impact in the meantime,” the status update said.
By Saturday evening, Microsoft said it was no longer detecting any Azure issues. But it seems Azure was not the only service affected, with NetBlocks reported that “a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries.”
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