https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/9/24266419/internet-archive-ddos-attack-pop-up-message

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The Internet Archive is under attack, with a popup claiming a
'catastrophic' breach

The Internet Archive is under attack, with a popup claiming a
'catastrophic' breach

/

A popup message claims the online archive has suffered "a
catastrophic security breach," as its operators say the site has been
DDOS'd for days.

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and
entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech
journalist since 2020.

Oct 9, 2024, 9:26 PM UTC

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An image showing a laptop with "Error" notifications on the screen
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When visiting The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) on Wednesday
afternoon, The Verge was greeted by a pop-up claiming the site had
been hacked. After closing the message, the site loaded normally,
albeit slowly.

However, as of 5:30PM ET, the popup was gone, but so was the rest of
the site, leaving only a placeholder message saying "Internet Archive
services are temporarily offline" and directing visitors to the
site's account on X for updates.

Here's what the popup said:

    "Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and
    is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security
    breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!"

HIBP refers to Have I Been Pwned?, a website where people can look up
whether or not their information has been published in data leaked
from cyber attacks. It's unclear what is happening with the site, but
attacks on services like TweetDeck have exploited XSS or cross-site
scripting vulnerabilities with similar effects.

Jason Scott, an archivist and software curator of The Internet
Archive, said the site was experiencing a DDoS attack, posting on
Mastodon that "According to their twitter, they're doing it just to
do it. Just because they can. No statement, no idea, no demands."

An account on X called SN_Blackmeta said it was behind the attack and
implied that another attack was planned for tomorrow. The account
also posted about DDoSing the Archive in May, and Scott has
previously posted about attacks seemingly aimed at disrupting the
Internet Archive.

We've reached out to the organization to learn more information.

Update, October 9th: Noted the site has been replaced with a
placeholder.

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