Internet Archive hacked, data breach impacts 31 million users

[bucolic_frolic]

Internet Archive hacked, data breach impacts 31 million users
By Lawrence Abrams

October 9, 2024 06:22 PM 9

Internet Archive

Internet Archive's "The Wayback Machine" has suffered a data breach after a threat actor compromised the website and stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records.

News of the breach began circulating Wednesday afternoon after visitors to archive.org began seeing a JavaScript alert created by the hacker, stating that the Internet Archive was breached.

"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!," reads a JavaScript alert shown on the compromised archive.org site.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/internet-archive-hacked-data-breach-impacts-31-million-users/

+++++++++++++++++

I wonder what "user authentication database" means? user of what, authentication by whom?

[TheProle]

1. Hackers Claim 'Catastrophic' Internet Archive Attack

A group linked to a pro-Palestinian hacktivist movement has launched a catastrophic cyberattack revealing the details of 31 million people, compromising their email addresses and screen names.

An account on X under the name SN_BlackMeta claimed responsibility for the attack on The Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, and implied that further attacks were planned. The Internet Archive is known for its digital library and the Wayback Machine. SN_BlackMeta has previously been linked to an attack against a Middle Eastern financial institution earlier this year, and a security firm has linked it to a pro-Palestinian hacktivist movement.

Encrypted passwords were also exposed and although these are relatively safe, users have been advised to change their passwords. And one expert has told Newsweek people should avoid browsing or using any files obtained from the site until it has declared an "all clear."

This breach was accompanied by a series of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks that temporarily took down the organization's website, archive.org, on Wednesday and is continuing to affect the website currently. Wayback Machine is also inaccessible right now.

https://www.newsweek.com/catastrophic-internet-archive-hack-hits-31-million-people-1966866

[snot]

2. Why the heck would anyone attack this organization?

(other than those who seek to erase history -- and why would a pro-Palestininan group wish to do that, since the historical context illumines and arguably justifies their resistance against Israeli expansion and occupation?)

[Beringia]

3. I experience this outage myself today

I was trying to fix broken links and missing images on my website and just generally check if things were still working and all of my internet archive pages wouldn't load because of this

[MissB]

4. Kick

[XanaDUer2]

5. Sucks