A whistle-blowing platform, WikiLeaks, has published what it claimed as a “highly confidential” document pilfered from the cloud computing provider Amazon.
Naming the document “Amazon Atlas“, the anti-secrecy organization claimed on Thursday: “The document from late 2015 lists the addresses and some operational details of over one hundred data centers spread across fifteen cities in nine countries”. It also highlighted the company’s ongoing links with the US intelligence community.
To accompany this document, WikiLeaks also created a map showing where Amazon’s data centers are located.
“Amazon, which is the largest cloud provider, is notoriously secretive about the precise locations of its data centers. While a few are publicly tied to Amazon, this is the exception rather than the norm. More often, Amazon operates out of data centers owned by other companies with little indication that Amazon itself is based there too or runs its own data centers under less-identifiable subsidiaries such as VaData, Inc,” the press release said.
Highlighting its links with the US secret agencies, the WikiLeaks said: “Amazon is the leading cloud provider for the United States intelligence community. In 2013, Amazon entered into a $600 million contract with the CIA to build a cloud for use by intelligence agencies working with information classified as Top Secret. Then, in 2017, Amazon announced the AWS Secret Region, which allows storage of data classified up to the Secret level by a broader range of agencies and companies. Amazon also operates a special GovCloud region for US Government agencies hosting unclassified information”.
