Ukrainian drones hit Yandex data centers, sparking claims that Russian troll farms went quiet - Help Net Security
Russian tech giant Yandex confirmed that drones hit three of its data centers, shutting down the facilities in Sasovo and Vladimir and knocking out part of the infrastructure in Kaluga.
Russian tech giant Yandex confirmed that drones hit three of its data centers, shutting down the facilities in Sasovo and Vladimir and knocking out part of the infrastructure in Kaluga.
On October 11, Yandex Cloud told its customers that the platform was running in emergency mode and advised them to switch to their own disaster recovery plans, after a drone attack shut down the company’s data center in Vladimir.
The facility was the third Yandex data center hit within four days.
The company did not disclose whether any customer data stored in the damaged data centers was lost for good.
The strikes were carried out by Ukrainian forces, and after the Sasovo strike, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was responding to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers, adding that Sasovo houses two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop its AI model, Reuters reported .
Ilya Lozovsky, a senior editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), disagreed, writing in a personal post on X that the viral claims about plummeting Russian bot activity He explained that the Cloudflare chart shows a decline in automated web traffic from Yandex, which Lozovsky also questioned the AfD chart Zdechovský shared, noting that it was unsourced and contained obvious errors.
Yandex, often called Russia’s Google, describes its data centers as its powering services that millions of people use daily and technology that hundreds of thousands of companies rely on to run their businesses.
Alexander Avdeyev, the governor of the Vladimir region, wrote on Telegram that drones attacked infrastructure on the outskirts of Vladimir, starting a fire and knocking out two substations that supply electricity to 5,000 residents, and that people living closest to the site were being evacuated.
According to the company, the Sasovo data center in the Ryazan region was seriously damaged in an attack on the night of October 7 to 8 and stopped operating.
Communication channels with technical support may be unstable,” the company said in a service alert.
The Kaluga facility was attacked on the morning of October 9, and the Vladimir data center went offline after an attack on the night of October 11.
“The Yandex Cloud platform remains operational in a limited mode.
After the strikes, charts from Cloudflare Radar showing a sharp drop in bot traffic from Yandex’s network spread online, along with numerous claims that the strikes had silenced Russian troll farms.
The platform is operating in emergency mode, and we recommend using any available alternative disaster recovery plans.
What happened
Russian tech giant Yandex confirmed that drones hit three of its data centers, shutting down the facilities in Sasovo and Vladimir and knocking out part of the infrastructure in Kaluga.
On October 11, Yandex Cloud told its customers that the platform was running in emergency mode and advised them to switch to their own disaster recovery plans, after a drone attack shut down the company’s data center in Vladimir.
The facility was the third Yandex data center hit within four days.
What changed
The company did not disclose whether any customer data stored in the damaged data centers was lost for good.
The strikes were carried out by Ukrainian forces, and after the Sasovo strike, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was responding to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers, adding that Sasovo houses two of the three supercomputers Yandex uses to develop its AI model, Reuters reported .
Ilya Lozovsky, a senior editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), disagreed, writing in a personal post on X that the viral claims about plummeting Russian bot activity He explained that the Cloudflare chart shows a decline in automated web traffic from Yandex, which Lozovsky also questioned the AfD chart Zdechovský shared, noting that it was unsourced and contained obvious errors.
Who is affected
Yandex, often called Russia’s Google, describes its data centers as its powering services that millions of people use daily and technology that hundreds of thousands of companies rely on to run their businesses.
Alexander Avdeyev, the governor of the Vladimir region, wrote on Telegram that drones attacked infrastructure on the outskirts of Vladimir, starting a fire and knocking out two substations that supply electricity to 5,000 residents, and that people living closest to the site were being evacuated.
Why it matters
According to the company, the Sasovo data center in the Ryazan region was seriously damaged in an attack on the night of October 7 to 8 and stopped operating.
Communication channels with technical support may be unstable,” the company said in a service alert.
Technical details
The Kaluga facility was attacked on the morning of October 9, and the Vladimir data center went offline after an attack on the night of October 11.
“The Yandex Cloud platform remains operational in a limited mode.
After the strikes, charts from Cloudflare Radar showing a sharp drop in bot traffic from Yandex’s network spread online, along with numerous claims that the strikes had silenced Russian troll farms.
Response
The platform is operating in emergency mode, and we recommend using any available alternative disaster recovery plans.
Our engineers are continuing recovery efforts,” reads the latest status update.
What security teams should do
Tomáš Zdechovský, a Czech Member of the European Parliament, wrote on X.
In a separate post that drew more than 4 million views, Zdechovský shared a chart that purportedly showed online activity around Germany’s right-wing AfD party falling after the strikes.
What remains unknown
The spokesperson added that Zdechovský personally believes there is a connection, but did not say where the chart came from, according to the full reply Lozovsky published.
Attribution
Help Net Security: Russian tech giant Yandex confirmed that drones hit three of its data centers, shutting down the facilities in Sasovo and Vladimir and knocking out part of the infrastructure in Kaluga.
What to watch next
Watch for revised vendor guidance, fixed versions and mitigation updates.