Cybersecurity and Uptime When the Cloud Goes Down: What Happened at AWS & Azure

How strong is the cybersecurity posture and uptime rate for your current enterprise network?

Do you have a detailed contingency plan in place to efficiently manage an operational lapse?

How long would it take you to recover from an extended downtime incident?

And what impact would downtime have on your customer service, satisfaction, and trust?

Cybersecurity posture and uptime maintenance are factors that you should seriously consider for your enterprise. Depending on the most popular platforms to maintain your uptime and data integrity is no guarantee that you will recover quickly … or at all.

We have all seen that the mighty do sometimes fall. Here are some recent cases in point:

The AWS Outage

On October 20, 2025, AWS experienced one of its biggest outages in years. The problem started with a software bug in the DNS system that supports DynamoDB in the us-east-1 region. This bug stopped many applications from connecting to AWS services and their APIs.

What began as a small issue quickly spread, affecting load balancers, API gateways, and other systems, disrupting hundreds of applications worldwide. The outage lasted for about 15 hours, and although AWS said services were restored by 6:01 p.m. ET, many customers still faced delays and system slowdowns afterward.

… Which means even the most reliable cloud providers can suffer major breakdowns when automation or DNS systems fail.

Azure September/October 2025 Disruptions

On September 12, 2025, Microsoft Azure also faced a major global outage that hit users across multiple regions. The issue started when a firmware update on core networking equipment caused routers to miscommunicate with Azure’s backbone network. This led to dropped connections, authentication failures, and service timeouts for tools like Microsoft 365, Teams, and various Azure-hosted applications.

Engineers rolled back the update and rerouted traffic, but the full recovery took nearly 10 hours. During that time, many organizations struggled to access data, cloud storage, and communication services.

Then, on October 29, 2025, a global outage tied to a faulty configuration change in its Azure Front Door (AFD) global edge network caused errors, timeouts, and latencies across Azure Portal, Microsoft 365, and third-party platforms.

The key takeaway: even large-scale cloud networks with regional redundancy can be undermined by control-plane errors or external infrastructure failures. A single misstep in network configuration can create a domino effect, impacting millions of users and critical workloads on a global scale.

Did either the AWS or Azure downtimes impact your workflow? If so and you found a workaround, please share how you handled it in the comments.

Outage Impacts on Uptime and Cybersecurity

• Single-point Automation Failures: The AWS outage was triggered by an internal automated system error, showing that human-less systems still require oversight.

  
  
  
  

• Propagation Across Services: Both incidents show how one failure in DNS or configuration can ripple through many services and regions.

  
  
  
  

• Hybrid/Third-party Dependency Risk: Enterprises relying exclusively on hyperscale providers may not have full control over recovery or routing when a disruption occurs.

  
  
  
  

• Cybersecurity Risk Overlap: While neither incident was reported as malicious, outages reduce visibility, increase risk of misconfigurations, and can expose dependent systems to attack vulnerabilities or degraded defenses.

Our best advice is that you be proactive and prepared. Have a solid game plan in place and make sure you have reliable data backups so that you can quickly restore functionality. Make sure youre team is trained up and ready to implement when need be. Did you know it takes an average 21 days to recover from a data breach?

Cybersecurity Feature Comparison: AWS vs Azure vs Gold Comet

Feature	AWS	Azure	Gold Comet
Region & AZ redundancy	Multiple regions, availability zones, but still single-region failures occur (e.g., us-east-1)	Global regions and zones; but configuration changes can ripple globally	Built on private/controlled infrastructure architecture, with dedicated redundancy and segregation
Control-plane & DNS robustness	DNS automation bug caused outage; exposed dependency on internal automation	Configuration change in AFD caused global service issues	Patented admin access control and whitelist authorization reduce risk from misconfiguration and automation failures
Audit & logging visibility	Extensive logs, but complex to centralize and monitor for all dependent services	Broad telemetry, but control-plane errors may evade some visibility	Immutable audit trails built in, with full visibility for file access, sharing and messaging
Data encryption / messaging security	Offers encryption in transit/at rest; third-party messaging and sharing may add risk	Strong encryption options; service-level security still depends on customer configuration	End-to-end encrypted storage, file sharing, and messaging, designed for secure collaboration and compliance
Zero-trust / role-based access enforcement	IAM and role-based access available, but large-scale service growth may increase complexity	Offers identity and access management, but incidents show compromised control → cascading failure risk	Zero-trust architecture baked in: role-segmented access, patented whitelist access, and enforced least-privilege across data management and messaging
Uptime & control over infrastructure	Very high availability SLA, but dependent on provider’s control-plane and automation	Strong availability, but as shown, regional or global failures due to configuration change or infrastructure cut	Platform designed to mitigate both external and internal failure modes, with built-in resilience for enterprise collaboration environments

Why Choose Gold Comet for Cybersecurity and Uptime

With patented administrator access controls, network activity audit logs, encrypted file sharing and messaging, plus zero-trust architecture that treats every user, including system administrators, as potential risks, Gold Comet offers a tightly controlled environment for sensitive data, collaboration, and uptime assurance.

The recent major outages at AWS and Azure are wake-up calls for any organization relying solely on hyperscale cloud infrastructure. While those platforms are powerful, they also demonstrate how even the largest providers can be undermined by automation errors, control-plane bugs, or external cable failures.

You may have little recourse or visibility when incidents occur.

If your business depends on secure data sharing, CMMC compliance readiness, and operational continuity, Gold Comet offers a proven alternative.

Take Action NOW

Don’t wait for the next cloud-provider failure or hide behind a generic SLA.

Discover today how Gold Comet’s secure collaboration platform keeps your data accessible and protected when it matters most.

👉 Request a personalized demo, a consultation about CMMC compliance, or submit any questions you have about Gold Comet to info@goldcomet.com. We stand ready to serve your cybersecure data management needs!