Ukraine's drones knock out AI data center belonging to "Russia's Google"

Good morning! This is Castilume, the daily tech desk, powered by Belink. I'm Nova, here with Atlas. It's Saturday, 10 October.

Five stories today. Every one is confirmed by at least two outlets, and the links are on the episode page.

Story one, AI. Ukraine's drones knock out AI data center belonging to "Russia's Google".

According to Ars Technica: One damaged data center has supercomputers used for training Yandex's AI model. Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked out two of five data centers belonging to the Russian tech giant Yandex. The damage has left Yandex, known as "Russia's Google" because it operates the country's most popular search engine, struggling to maintain its AI chatbot and other online services. "We continue to respond to Russia's attacks on Ukraine, and we're doing so with high precision," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a post on X.

Also reported by Newsweek, news.sbs.co.kr and Daily Sabah.

For a small business here, three questions: can you use it this month, what does it cost, and where does your data go? If the story can't answer those yet, file it and move on.

Story two, AI. Ohio blogger found guilty of harassment for sending Shrek nude to senator.

The Verge reports: A jury found an Ohio political blogger guilty of telecommunications harassment after he sent an explicit image of Shrek to a Republican state senator. The Rooster's DJ Byrnes was ordered to pay $200 over the explicit Shrek message. Jerry Cirino in May after he dropped out of the state's Senate presidential race. As reported by the Columbus Dispatch, Byrnes sent a nude image of Shrek alongside the message: "Good to see you finally made your humiliation public, Young Mussolini!

Also reported by Ohio Capital Journal, Gizmodo and Cleveland.com.

The test for a business in the region: is it available here, what does it cost, and who sees your data? No clear answers yet means it's one to watch, not one to buy.

Story three, Gulf tech. COFE Tech receives new backing from Phoenix Venture Partners.

Here's what Wamda is reporting. Saudi Arabia-HQ enterprise technology company COFE Tech has secured an undisclosed investment from Abu Dhabi-based Phoenix Venture Partners, alongside co-investors including KSH Investments, the international investment platform of the Private Department of Sheikh Mohamed Bin Khalid Al Nahyan. Phoenix Venture Partners Limited, "PVP", an ADGM-based venture capital fund manager, today announced its investment in COFE District LLC, "COFE Tech", a leading provider of intelligent procurement and commerce infrastructure serving more than 1,000 businesses across the Gulf. Often dubbed the "Salesforce of MENA," COFE Tech has evolved into one of the region's leading operators of agentic AI-powered enterprise platforms. The investment, completed earlier this year, comes as COFE Tech enters its next phase of growth, a milestone that marks the beginning of a strategic partnership aimed at supporting the company throughout its growth journey and eventual IPO readiness.

Also reported by FWDStart.

For businesses in Qatar and the Gulf, watch the practical side: data residency, local support, and who is accountable when something breaks.

Story four, security. Citrix Patches Critical NetScaler Flaw That Could Enable RCE in SAML Deployments.

Per The Hacker News: Citrix has released patches for yet another critical security flaw impacting NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway that could result in remote code execution or denial-of-service, DoS, under certain conditions. "CVE-2026-107406 is a memory overflow vulnerability that may lead to remote code execution or denial-of-service under specific configuration conditions," Citrix said. The vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.5 out of 10.0. There is no evidence that the issue has been exploited in the wild.

And from BleepingComputer: Citrix has warned IT administrators to patch systems immediately against a new critical vulnerability affecting NetScaler ADC networking appliances and NetScaler Gateway secure remote access solutions.

The practical step: check whether you run the product named in the reports. If you do, read the vendor advisory and patch. If you don't, no action today.

Story five, security. FBI Arrests Another ShinyHunters Suspect Reportedly Involved in Its Jobs Portal Hack.

According to The Hacker News: The FBI has arrested another suspected co-conspirator of ShinyHunters, FBI Director Kash Patel said on October 9 in a post on X. ShinyHunters is the extortion group that said in September it had breached the FBI's jobs portal and stolen sensitive data on almost all FBI agents and job applicants. The FBI has not named the suspect, and no charges have been made public. The suspect is a Canadian citizen who was arrested in Pennsylvania, according to The New York Times and CBS News.

Dark Reading adds: In this video conversation, Dark Reading editors discuss some of the news they didn't get a chance to cover, from the arrest of a suspected ShinyHunters operative to the compromise of a Pentagon-run data center.

Quick check for your team: do you run anything exposed to the internet that matches this report? If yes, lock it down and patch today. If not, keep an eye on it.

That's Castilume for today. The news, then what it means. Sources for every story are on the episode page. I'm Nova.

And I'm Atlas. See you tomorrow!