Article By Arden Dier
Russians are getting a crash course in what a war on data looks like. Ukrainian drone strikes on major Russian data centers—most notably those serving tech giant Yandex—have snarled everything from rent payments to food deliveries for days, leaving some users literally locked out of both bank accounts and apartment buildings.
Not only were digital keys unavailable, rent payments were impossible. “I had absolutely no money. Well, I had the money, but it was inaccessible,” a woman in St. Petersburg tells NBC News.
Data centers tied to Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google; Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank; and tech giant VK were all hit, disrupting payment services, cloud storage, taxi apps, and smart home systems, and leaving everyday Russians “shocked.” Analysts say Kyiv is trying to make Russians feel the costs of the war by targeting infrastructure that has both military and civilian value.
Yandex says data centers are “critical for services that have become part of people’s everyday lives.” Moscow has promised to bolster digital security but offered no direct relief so far. It first attacked Ukraine’s data centers in September, Ars Technica reports, noting pro-Kremlin commentators now question whether it was ready for retaliation.
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