This week, hackers broke into the Wayback Machine, a service owned by the non-profit Internet Archive that allows users to view pages of websites saved in the past. During a DDoS attack on the platform, attackers managed to steal the data of 31 million service users, including logins, email addresses and encrypted passwords. Internet Archive functionality will be restored within a few days.
«Data is safe. Services are offline while we study and improve them. Sorry, but this is necessary. @internetarchive employees work tirelessly. Estimated timeframe: days, not weeks,” said platform founder Brewster Kahle.
The Internet Archive hack became known in the middle of the week. Visitors to the archive.org website noticed the appearance of a notification left by the attackers, which stated that the site had been hacked. Later, Have I Been Pwned founder Troy Hunt reported that he had obtained a file with stolen user data. According to available data, the last entry in the stolen database is dated September 28, 2024. Users registered on Hunt’s website may receive a warning if information associated with them is present in the stolen database.