Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahl will speak on stage in New York City in 2022. He said more than 31 million users were affected by the cyberattack on the nonprofit organization, which advocates universal access to all knowledge. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images Hide Unfinished Live Caption
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The world’s largest Internet archive, whose mission is to provide “universal access to all knowledge,” was hacked this month, putting the information of millions of users at risk and forcing the temporary suspension of its services. Ta.
The attack on the Internet Archive destroyed more than 31 million user accounts, including patron email addresses and encrypted passwords, according to Have I Been Pwnd, a website that tracks accounts that may have been compromised in data breaches. It is said that personal information was leaked.
The Internet Archive is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization operating on a shoestring budget that provides free access to a vast digitized library of current and historical websites, software applications, and printed materials. I am. The group said its vast cache of archival material was “safe” after the breach.
IA said it had temporarily taken down the entire site to “access and improve security.” By Friday, most services were back online, including the Wayback Machine, a website archiving tool. IA said it was working “around the clock” throughout the weekend to safely restore remaining services.
“More services will be restarted in the coming days, but some will start in read-only mode as full restoration will take longer,” said IA Founder Brewster Carre. That’s what he wrote in a blog entry he posted on Friday.
News of the attack surfaced on October 9, when a visitor to archive.org shared a screenshot that displayed a message that the website’s JavaScript had been altered and the Internet Archive had been compromised.
“Have I Been Pwnd” by 31 million people? “Have I Been Pwnd” Please read the temporary JavaScript alert. on the site.
“We are taking a deliberate and deliberate approach to rebuilding and strengthening our defenses. Our priority is to bring the Internet Archive even stronger and more securely online.” he said in a blog post.
He also mentioned other recent cyberattacks on libraries, including the British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library, and Calgary Public Library.
“We hope these attacks do not represent a trend,” he said.
Kahl told the Washington Post that the Internet Archive suffered its first attack since its founding in 1996 in May, and continued to experience intermittent outages.
Since 2020, the Internet Archive has been plagued by lawsuits over the digitization of copyrighted books and music. Kahl told the Post that the hefty fines resulting from the lawsuit could be a fatal blow to the archive.
The nonprofit has not yet shared further updates on the breach of confidential information. NPR has reached out to the Internet Archive for more details about the attack and how its users were affected.
