🚨Yandex Data Centers Hit, Bot Traffic Plummets
Yandex's bot farms and influence ops reportedly knocked offline
TL;DR
Yandex data centers reportedly hit by strikes, causing a significant drop in bot traffic. Yandex Search saw a 99% traffic drop, while Yandex.Cloud saw a 40% decline in malicious activities. This highlights the impact on automated requests and web indexing.
Yandex data centers reportedly hit by strikes, leading to a significant drop in bot traffic. Yandex Search (AS13238) saw a 99% traffic drop, while Yandex.Cloud (AS200350) experienced a 40% decline in malicious activities. This disruption underscores the impact on automated requests and web indexing, affecting industries like publishing and gambling. The event highlights the vulnerability of centralized infrastructure to cyber and physical attacks.

Key Points
Yandex Search (AS13238) saw a 99% drop in traffic, with 78.1% of requests from verified YandexBot.
Yandex.Cloud (AS200350) experienced a 40% decline in malicious activities, with 95% of requests being bots.
Publishing and Newspapers saw a 44% traffic drop from Yandex networks, with 40.5% of requests returning HTTP 403 Forbidden.
Yandex.Cloud's bot traffic shifted to other Russian hosting ASNs like Radist and Selectel, maintaining identical fingerprints.
Russian bot traffic targeting gambling accounts remained flat at 170.1 million requests, moving from Yandex.Cloud to other ASNs.
Why It Matters
If you're running a web service that relies on Yandex for indexing or automation, the recent strikes could disrupt your traffic patterns. For example, a news site that relies on YandexBot for indexing might see a significant drop in traffic. Similarly, gambling sites that attract bot traffic from Yandex.Cloud may notice a shift in traffic patterns to other hosting providers.
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