Tue Oct 15 12:46:16 UTC 2024: ## Internet Archive Back Online After Cyberattack, But With Limited Functionality

The Internet Archive, a digital library and home to the Wayback Machine, is back online in a read-only state after a cyberattack last week. The attack, which involved a data breach and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, forced the site offline on October 9th.

According to founder Brewster Kahle, the archive is currently in a “provisional, read-only manner” as staff continue to strengthen security against future attacks. While users can access the Wayback Machine to search its vast collection of 916 billion archived web pages, they cannot currently capture new websites.

The cyberattack resulted in the theft of a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records, including email addresses, screen names, hashed passwords, and other internal data.

The Internet Archive outage comes just weeks after Google began adding links to archived websites in the Wayback Machine. This move followed Google’s decision to remove its own cached pages links earlier this year, making the Wayback Machine a valuable resource for accessing older versions of websites.

Internet Archive staff are gradually restoring services, including email accounts and crawlers for National Libraries, as they work to ensure the site’s security. The site’s full functionality is expected to return once the security measures are fully implemented.

Read More