Internet Archive Hacked, More Than 31 Million Users Needed Change Your Password Quickly If You Have An Account
The Internet Archive , the legendary digital library that preserves the history of the web, is having one of its worst moments. On Wednesday afternoon, those who logged in to check anything were met with an unpleasant surprise: a pop-up message announcing a “catastrophic security breach.”
To give you an idea of what happened, it's like someone broke into the Library of Congress and stole the records of 31 million users. Something like that is what happened, but at the Internet Archive.
Troy Hunt, the cybersecurity director behind the website “Have I Been Pwned?”, confirmed that he obtained a file containing data from millions of Internet Archive users — emails, usernames and encrypted passwords — that could become a treasure trove for hackers.
But it didn't stop there and data theft wasn't enough. That's when the site started suffering from Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks with the idea that no one could access the site, at the time of writing this article, you can access it without any problems.
Founder Brewster Kahl was quick to confirm the worst. In a tweet, he acknowledged the security breach and explained that the attackers used a JavaScript library to deface the site.
Founder Brewster Kahl was quick to confirm the worst. In a tweet, he acknowledged the security breach and explained that the attackers used a JavaScript library to deface the site.
What’s even more worrying is that this attack doesn’t appear to be an isolated issue. Jason Scott, one of the site’s archivists, commented on Mastodon that the attackers are doing this “just because they can.” There are no requests, no communications, just pure digital vandalism.
This is where the mysterious character SN_Blackmeta comes in. This X account has claimed responsibility for the attack and also threatens more similar situations in the future.
Meanwhile, millions of users are wondering if their data is safe and what they should do now. The experts’ advice is clear: if you have an account on the Internet Archive, change your password immediately, and if you use it on other sites, change it there as well.