Customers can now assess the scope of a Yandex cloud outage after drone attacks damaged three data centers, shut down two facilities and reduced capacity at a third. The disruption has blocked or slowed access to some cloud files and affected multiple business services.
What happened to Yandex’s cloud infrastructure?
Yandex confirmed that drone attacks hit data centers in Sasovo on October 8, Kaluga on October 9 and Vladimir on October 11. The Sasovo and Vladimir facilities stopped operating, while the Kaluga facility continued with reduced capacity.
The outages began affecting customers at different times and with different effects. Some users could not access files stored on Yandex’s cloud infrastructure. One customer reported missing thumbnails in Yandex Disk backups and an inability to download files submitted earlier.
The reported access failures included HTTP 302 redirects, HTTP 504 Gateway Timeouts and HTTP 500 errors. A screenshot accompanying the report showed a failure to fetch file contents.
Which Yandex services remain available?
Several core services were available, though some had performance or availability problems.
- Console, API, IAM and Container Registry were available.
- Databases, S3 storage and Kubernetes were available.
- Compute, AI Studio and security services were only partially available.
- Monium remained offline.
These conditions mean that a service appearing in the console may not have delivered complete or reliable performance. Access to stored information also remained uncertain because Yandex had not addressed whether any data in the affected data centers had been permanently lost.
Can customers protect data during the outage?
Yandex said its teams were working around the clock to maintain services and support affected customers and partners. The company could not provide a reliable timetable for restoring full service.
The remaining system configuration was described as unstable. Yandex recommended that customers activate alternative disaster-recovery plans and use other infrastructure while repairs and service recovery continued.
The outage shows why organizations that depend on cloud-based systems need disaster recovery plans that handle situations where files can’t be accessed, services aren’t available, and restoration times are unknown. Keeping a separate copy of critical information and a tested recovery environment can help maintain access when a primary provider experiences a major interruption.
How broad is Yandex’s service network?
Yandex is one of Russia’s largest technology companies and is often compared with Google. Its services include search, maps, navigation, ride-hailing, delivery, shopping, streaming, email, cloud storage and business cloud infrastructure.
The company runs a large share of Russia’s internet infrastructure, serving public-sector and private-sector organizations. The disruption at several data centers hit more than personal storage accounts because Yandex’s customers rely on the platform for many consumer and business functions.
No injuries were reported in connection with the data-center incidents. Attribution of the attacks was not addressed in the available information, which said they were believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian forces seeking widespread operational disruption.
What did the outage reveal about service status?
A cloud provider can report many individual components as available while some customers still encounter failures, degraded performance or missing file access. The Yandex status page listed multiple services as operational, yet reports of file-download problems continued.
Service availability does not always mean every feature or stored object can be reached. Organizations using cloud storage should verify that backups, downloads and recovery procedures work without relying on one provider’s standard interface.
FAQ
What caused the Yandex service outage?
Drone attacks damaged Yandex data centers in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir. Two facilities stopped operating, while the third continued with reduced capacity.
Could users lose files stored on Yandex cloud infrastructure?
Some users could not access or download files, and one customer reported missing thumbnails in Yandex Disk backups. It remained unclear whether any data had been permanently lost.
Which Yandex services were affected?
Compute, AI Studio and security services were partially available, while Monium remained offline. Console, API, IAM, Container Registry, databases, S3 storage and Kubernetes were available with some performance or availability issues.