Thu Sep 04 16:10:00 UTC 2025: ## Google Services Disrupted Across Eastern Europe; Cyberattack Suspected
**Multiple European countries, particularly in the Balkans and Black Sea regions, experienced widespread outages of Google services, including Search, Gmail, YouTube, and Docs, beginning at 08:10 GMT today.**
The disruption, which also affected services like Spotify, triggered a surge of reports from Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, North Macedonia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, with 16 other countries reporting partial outages. The majority of initial reports originated from Turkey and Bulgaria, but later reports indicated the problem extended into parts of Western Europe.
The geographically concentrated outage in the Black Sea region has raised concerns about a potential cyberattack targeting critical internet infrastructure. The affected area aligns with the entry points of major underwater cables connecting Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia. While no damage to physical infrastructure has been confirmed, the incident has prompted heightened vigilance and the use of alternative communication channels in affected countries.
While Google has yet to release an official statement explaining the cause of the outage, speculation is mounting. Past Google service interruptions have been attributed to issues with data centers and power supplies. The possibility of hackers targeting Google’s power sources and disabling data centers is being considered. The fact that the area includes countries that Russia has identified as hostile draws suspicion of a deliberate attack.
It is important to note that the outage occurred almost a year after Russia was removed from all Google services following sanctions imposed on September 12, 2024.
The situation remains fluid, and further updates are expected as Google investigates the cause of the disruption.
First Piper 