On the morning of September 4, 2025, millions of people around the world faced a sudden problem. Google services, including Gmail, YouTube, and the main search engine, went offline in many countries.
Google Services Hit Across Dozens of Countries
The outage stretched from Turkey and Southeast Europe to parts of Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe, and even U.S. cities like New York and Chicago.
Google confirmed that it had received a surge of outage reports. The company listed problems across Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Croatia, Romania, Armenia, Serbia, Germany, the Netherlands, and more than 50 other countries. The issue was described as ongoing at the time. However, Google has not officially explained the cause of the disruption.
For many users, this outage created real difficulties. Students could not access study materials, businesses were unable to use Google’s tools, and millions could not reach their Gmail accounts. Videos on YouTube stopped loading, and Google Search returned errors.
Hacking Group Posts Video Claiming Attack
Just a short time after the outage began, an Iran-backed Iraqi hacking group came forward with a bold claim. At 7:58 AM UTC, the group announced on social media that it had attacked Google’s servers. According to their statement, this caused “paralysis of the search engine.”
The hackers posted a 44-second video as supposed proof. The video showed someone typing the group’s name into Google Search, which led to an ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED error message. In contrast, Yahoo’s search engine worked normally in the clip.
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Alongside this video, the group declared responsibility for the disruption. They said they accepted “full liability for all damages caused to Google” during what they described as the “very first minutes of our operation.”
The group also shared outage maps, including screenshots from Downdetector and Google’s own outage map. These images highlighted service interruptions in Eastern European countries, parts of the Middle East, and areas in the United States.
Claims Under Question but Impact Remains Clear
Despite the bold declaration, the group’s video does not prove that its attack caused the outage. The clip only shows that Google services were unavailable in some regions, something already widely reported by users at the time. Security experts often note that internet outages can be caused by many issues, including technical failures, misconfigurations, or broader cyberattacks.
Google has not confirmed any link between the outage and the hacking group’s claims. The company has only acknowledged the widespread problem and the reports flooding in from dozens of countries.
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Still, the impact of the outage was impossible to ignore. The disruption was visible on Downdetector, which showed massive spikes in user complaints. From Europe to the Middle East and across parts of the U.S., users were left frustrated as key Google services failed to load.
While the hacking group took a public victory lap, many observers noted that their statement lacked clear technical evidence. Without Google’s own confirmation, their role in the outage remains uncertain.
For ordinary users, however, the cause mattered less than the effect. Millions were locked out of essential online tools, showing just how deeply Google services are woven into daily life across the globe.
