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A sad day for the internet, as it has been confirmed that the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/) that hosts a massive amount of historical data has been hit by DDoS attacks, and unfortunately they've had a breach.

Recently instead of seeing the website as usual, users were greeted with message like this (credit):

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 is in reference to the popular HaveIBeenPwned website, that lists various data breaches and now includes this latest breach in their database. Troy Hunt, founder of HIBP, confirmed in a thread on Twitter / X that it is legitimate and they had been communicating with the Internet Archive about it,

The breach was also confirmed by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, who said this on Twitter / X:

What we know: DDOS attack–fended off for now; defacement of our website via JS library; breach of usernames/email/salted-encrypted passwords.

What we’ve done: Disabled the JS library, scrubbing systems, upgrading security.

Will share more as we know it.

It did briefly come back up, but was hit by another DDoS. As a result, the Internet Archive has been taken offline while their admins deal with the situation.

An account on Twitter / X called "Sn_darkmeta" claimed responsibility for it.

Just another reminder that you should never share passwords between websites.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Security, Misc
16 Likes
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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33 comments
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based Oct 13
Quoting: Anza
Quoting: based
Quoting: Linux_RocksI find it funny how Nintendo ends up getting blamed in the comments somehow. Could you imagine the PR nightmare it would cause if they were found out? Nintendo isn't stupid enough to do something like this. Even if some of their actions (especially as of late) have been questionable. I'm not saying that a big company isn't or couldn't be behind this. I'm just saying that I highly doubt Nintendo would be the ones to do so.

Then as far as it possibly being a false flag to cause Palestinians further issues. I could see that. Seeing as how petty western imperialist countries can be with their bullshit, actions, and propaganda.

How would they be found out? Whoever did it could have paid a hacker, who could have been in a differrnt country AND using proxy

I can totally imagine someone like Nintendo who dont always play by the rules to do this.

I assume huge companies would attack Internet Archive with their huge lawyer armies. Legal battles can have lasting effect on how the Internet Archive works.

Wasn't this tried a few times by now?
LoudTechie Oct 13
Quoting: based
Quoting: Anza
Quoting: based
Quoting: Linux_RocksI find it funny how Nintendo ends up getting blamed in the comments somehow. Could you imagine the PR nightmare it would cause if they were found out? Nintendo isn't stupid enough to do something like this. Even if some of their actions (especially as of late) have been questionable. I'm not saying that a big company isn't or couldn't be behind this. I'm just saying that I highly doubt Nintendo would be the ones to do so.

Then as far as it possibly being a false flag to cause Palestinians further issues. I could see that. Seeing as how petty western imperialist countries can be with their bullshit, actions, and propaganda.

How would they be found out? Whoever did it could have paid a hacker, who could have been in a differrnt country AND using proxy

I can totally imagine someone like Nintendo who dont always play by the rules to do this.

I assume huge companies would attack Internet Archive with their huge lawyer armies. Legal battles can have lasting effect on how the Internet Archive works.

Wasn't this tried a few times by now?


A. It's currently in one and it's losing.
B. Yeah, some more successful than others.
Klaas Oct 17
There are progress reports on Mastodon. The Wayback machine is running in read-only mode and they hope to re-start crawling today.
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