Cybersecurity

Four Lightning Strikes in Belgium Erase Google Customer Data

Google says four successive lightning strikes on one of its cloud infrastructure facilities in Europe last week permanently wiped out some customers' data stored on disks. Google called the incident "exceptional" and apologized to those affected.

In an online statement Wednesday, Google said the series of unlucky strikes happened on Aug. 13 at its data center in Belgium. The lightning briefly knocked out power to systems that host customers' data and allow clients to run virtual machines "in the cloud."