Wartime data-center strikes reportedly disrupt civilian services
SecurityUnverifiedUpdated:
404 Media says Ukrainian strikes hit four Russian data centers in a week; it says outages at two Yandex facilities disrupted services used for communications, transport, payments, and logistics.
Two Yandex facilities reportedly taken fully offline
According to 404 Media, Ukrainian drones struck Russian data centers, including facilities operated by Yandex and Sberbank. The article says two of Yandex's six Russian data centers went completely offline and describes interruptions to email, transport apps, and commercial logistics. It also cites attacks by Russia on Ukrainian data centers and an Iranian strike on AWS facilities in Dubai as related examples.
The article does not provide a comparable baseline for how often data centers were targeted in prior conflicts.
The report describes recent strikes on Russian data centers alongside attacks involving Ukrainian and Dubai facilities, presenting data centers as dual-use wartime targets whose outages can affect civilian services.
Dual use and effects on civilian services
Data centers can hold both civilian and military-related data. The report highlights how that dual use can make their status as lawful targets difficult to assess, while outages may primarily affect civilian users.
Sources
- 404 MediaData Centers Are War Targets NowRead source →