Were Houthi terrorists responsible for data cable cuts in Red Sea?

Microsoft said on Saturday that its Microsoft Azure users may experience increased latency due to multiple undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.

In an updated status message for its Azure system, the company said its users may experience service disruptions on traffic routes through the Middle East.

"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 the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip," said the Times of Israel. "But the Houthis have denied attacking the lines in the past."

Subsea cables can be damaged by ships' anchors, either accidentally or deliberately, or intentionally targeted in other ways.

"We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East. Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted. We'll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change," Microsoft added.

As a result of the disruption, Azure, the world's second largest cloud provider after Amazon's AWS, has rerouted traffic through alternate network paths and network traffic is not interrupted.

(Reporting by Harshita Meenaktshi in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul)