Data Centers Are War Targets Now

Data centers are being targeted in conflicts, raising questions about international law and the dual-use nature of these facilities.

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Ukrainian drones have hit Russia's largest data center, marking the fourth strike on Russian data centers in the past week. This development confirms a new reality of war, where data centers are valuable enemy assets and will be targeted.

The attack on the Sberbank data center is the latest in a series of strikes on data centers this year. In March, Iran hit Amazon Web Services data centers in Dubai, knocking out digital infrastructure in the Middle East. Russia has been targeting Ukrainian data centers for months.

The strikes on Yandex, Russia's Google-equivalent, have disrupted internet and communications across Russia. The company operates six data centers in Russia, and the strikes knocked two of them offline completely. People in Russia have lost access to their email, and some of their data is seemingly gone.

The effects of the strikes on the civilian population are severe. Yandex is ubiquitous in Russia, providing services such as email, payment services, and taxi and bus apps. The company's data centers are critical to the functioning of these services, and their disruption has had a significant impact on everyday Russians.

The attacks on data centers raise questions about international law and the dual-use nature of these facilities. Klaudia Klonowska, a researcher who studies the effects of emerging technologies on international law, notes that attacks on data centers are so new that international law around them is still developing.

According to Klonowska, if the data centers are purely processing military data, then they could be legitimate targets. However, many data centers are dual-use, meaning they house both civilian and military data. Disrupting daily life seems to be part of the point in many cases.