Home · World · Oct 8 archive

Yandex Data Center Attacked by Drone in Russia

12:16 AM ETConfirmed

World Desk

In Short: A drone attack caused a fire at Yandex's data center in Sasovo, Russia, leading to service disruptions.

A drone attack caused a fire at Yandex's data center in Sasovo, Russia, leading to service disruptions, the company confirmed Thursday.

The attack, which occurred overnight on October 8, forced the complete shutdown of the data center, affecting part of its infrastructure.

Yandex, often referred to as 'Russia's Google,' operates five large data centers in Russia, with the Sasovo facility being one of its largest.

The company stated it was still assessing the extent of the damage to its infrastructure and could not confirm whether the equipment could be restored.

Both Russia and Ukraine have intensified long-range strikes on each other in recent months, with recent Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian data centers and logistics warehouses.

Ukrainian officials claimed responsibility for the attack, with Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, stating, 'Two can play at this game.'

Yandex's spokesperson did not specify the origin of the drone, but the company's cloud status dashboard noted a power outage at its ru-central-b availability zone.

The attack disrupted many segments of the Russian internet, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the Moscow Times.

Yandex runs the country's most popular search engine and a food-ordering and taxi application used by millions of people across the Russian-speaking world.

The company's European and Russian operations were separated in February 2024, following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

Yandex's data center in Sasovo is located about 300 kilometers east of Moscow and more than 500 kilometers from Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

Background

What's confirmed

• As reported by Kyiv Independent, the data center in question was the Yandex DC Sasovo, located in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast, as identified by Ukrainian and Russian OSINT specialists Exilenova+ and ASTRA, and is Yandex's largest data center facility.
• Morning Rundown: Trump weighs Iran strikes before midterms, Latino voters reject ICE crackdown, and Christa Pike’s first words after waking up Drones hit a major data center in Russia’s Ryazan region owned by ⁠the country’s leading Artificial Intelligence and technology company Yandex, the company said on Thursday.
• "At this stage, we cannot confirm whether the equipment at our Sasovo data center can be restored," it added.
• Drones hit a data center owned by Russia's Yandex, the country's leading AI and technology company said on Thursday, ⁠in the first major attack on a Russian data ⁠hub since the start of the war with Ukraine.
• Yandex said the attack on its Sasovo hub, one of its five large data centers, caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers.
• “The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed,” Yandex said in a statement.
• “For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo.” The company earlier said some of its services were unavailable and specialist teams were at the site assessing the damage.
• Morning Rundown: Gulf Coast braces for life-threatening hurricane and how TrumpRx drug prices compare with other countries Drones hit a major data center in Russia’s Ryazan region owned by ⁠the country’s leading artificial intelligence and technology company, Yandex, the company said Thursday.

What's still developing

• A data centre is a building that houses IT infrastructure, often servers and electronic equipment that ensure the smooth running of internet services.
• Satellite imagery in Yandex Maps shows the sites blurred, while searches for their addresses do not indicate that Yandex data centers are located there.
• An attack on a shopping center in Sumy left two people dead and 20 injured on Wednesday, while a similar facility in Zaporizhzhia was almost completely destroyed on Monday, with no casualties reported.
• Dentsu is folding its proprietary Japanese intellectual property research into its Dentsu.Connect data and identity platform, with Kodansha’s catalog positioned as an early beneficiary of that integration.
• Ukrainian officials reported that at least seven people were killed and more than 80 wounded on Monday as Russian strikes hit apartment blocks, offices, petrol stations, data centres and cultural sites.
• Dronele au lovit un centru de date deținut de compania rusă Yandex, a anunțat joi cea mai importantă companie de inteligență artificială și tehnologie din țară, acesta fiind primul atac major asupra unui centru de date rus de la începutul războiului cu Ucraina, scrie Reuters.
• "We always respond in kind. You all know that they have been and are striking our data centers, so we responded to them," Zelensky said.
• Russia’s defence ministry separately said it had struck a data centre belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country’s second-largest mobile network operator.
• Help rescue animals from the front line — shop our Companion Collection 🐾 Russian technology giant Yandex's data center in Vladimir Oblast has been completely shut down following a reported drone attack, Russian state news agency TASS said on Oct. 11, citing the company.
• A 14-year-old Ukrainian boy with Israeli citizenship was killed in a Russian drone strike on an apartment building in Kyiv on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said.
• Flight tracking site Flightradar24’s data showed all flights to Riyadh ​had either been diverted or cancelled.
• Your MikroTik Router May Already Be Compromised: Look for SSH User “-2” AI Agents Hijacked German Wiki to Cheat, OpenAI Delayed Disclosure OpenAI Announced $1B in Defensive Tools for Water Utilities PaperCut Flaws Exploited in Attacks on U.S.

Sources

• AFPlink
• Daily Sabahlink
• Data Center Dynamicslink
• Euromaidan Presslink
• Insurance Journallink
• Intellinewslink
• Internazionalelink
• NBC Newslink
• Newslink
• Technology Orglink
• The New Voice of Ukrainelink
• The Record from Recorded Future Newslink
• Themoscowtimeslink
• UNITED24 Medialink
• Ziarul de Gardălink
• Kyivpostlink
• New York Post — video link