Red Sea cable cuts disrupt internet, Microsoft reroutes Azure

Multiple undersea fiber optic cables in the Red Sea were cut on Saturday, Sept. 6, disrupting internet access across parts of the Middle East and South Asia and forcing Microsoft to reroute traffic for its Azure cloud service, company and network monitors said. The outages, first flagged at about 0545 GMT, affected traffic passing through the Middle East and produced higher than normal latency for connections between Asia and Europe that normally traverse the corridor.

Microsoft said in a system status update that Azure customers whose traffic "previously traversed through the Middle East" should expect increased latency while engineers rebalance and optimize routing. The company added that traffic not routed through the Middle East was not impacted and that it would provide daily updates or sooner if conditions change. Some outlets reported that Microsoft restored normal service by Saturday evening, while other reports and Microsoft status notes issued over the weekend continued to warn of degraded performance for certain routes, reflecting differing assessments of recovery progress.

Internet-monitoring group NetBlocks reported degraded connectivity in several countries,...