Kaspersky services outage coincides with Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers
Global failures in Kaspersky VPN and password manager occurred hours after drone attacks hit Yandex infrastructure, though no technical link is confirmed.
Key points
- Kaspersky VPN, Password Manager, and Safe Kids were unavailable worldwide from October 11 to October 14, 2026.
- The outage began shortly after Ukrainian drones disabled a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Russia.
- Kaspersky attributed the disruption to technical issues and stated that user data and protection remained intact.
Kaspersky’s global services, including its VPN and password manager, experienced a multi-day outage in October 2026 that began within hours of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian infrastructure. The timing has prompted scrutiny, although no technical connection between the attacks and the service failure has been established.
The disruption prevented access to the company’s VPN, Password Manager, Safe Kids parental controls, and the My Kaspersky account portal. According to TechRadar, the outage lasted from October 11 until roughly October 14. Kaspersky has cited technical issues as the cause but has not disclosed the specific underlying failure or confirmed any relationship to the nearby military events.
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Context and Background
The outage commenced on October 11, 2026, shortly after Ukrainian drones forced the shutdown of a third Yandex data center in Vladimir. Yandex is Russia’s largest technology firm. The proximity of these events in time and geography led to immediate speculation about a causal link, despite the lack of evidence.
On October 15, a viral post by commentator Professor Talk claimed that Kaspersky’s antivirus was "practically dead" in Europe due to failed database updates and lost passwords. TechRadar noted that these specific claims were inaccurate regarding database integrity and password loss. The outage was indeed global and temporary, but it did not result in the permanent loss of user credentials or the cessation of core antivirus database updates.
Who Is Affected
Early reports on Kaspersky’s support forum on October 11 described VPN connection failures on both PC and mobile devices. Within a day, users from Malaysia, Brazil, Italy, Vietnam, Spain, Germany, Iraq, the UK, and Australia reported similar issues. Users in Japan also noted failed activations and unreachable VPN services on social media platform X.
On October 12, Kaspersky forum moderator Danila T. confirmed that features including VPN, Safe Kids, and Password Manager were temporarily unavailable. He stated that protection capabilities and user data were unaffected. Another moderator, Berny, relayed in French that the VPN issues impacted every supported operating system. Kaspersky announced it would automatically extend subscriptions for licenses purchased on or after October 10 to compensate for the downtime.
What should you do?
Users experiencing service interruptions should verify the status of their subscriptions and check for automatic extensions applied by the vendor. It is important to distinguish between service availability and data integrity; in this case, core protection and stored data remained secure despite the outage.
What to do and how to stay safe: Kaspersky
- Verify if your subscription has been automatically extended to cover any period of service unavailability.
- Check official vendor status pages or support forums for confirmed outage details rather than relying on social media rumors.
- Ensure your antivirus definitions are up to date once services resume, as core protection may have continued independently of the cloud outage.
- Review your password manager sync status to confirm that locally stored credentials remain accessible and intact.
Step-by-step guide: Mobile Device Security: How to Protect Data Beyond Passwords
General security guidance from the Threat Times newsroom. It is not confirmed advice from the organisations named in this story.
Frequently asked questions
Did the Kaspersky outage result in the loss of user passwords or data?
No, Kaspersky stated that user data and protection were unaffected, and reports of lost passwords were incorrect.
Was the outage linked to the Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex?
No technical link has been confirmed between the drone strikes on Yandex infrastructure and the Kaspersky service failure.
Which Kaspersky services were affected by the October 2026 outage?
The VPN, Password Manager, Safe Kids parental controls, and the My Kaspersky account portal were temporarily unavailable.
