Grapevine

Internet Archive reels from 'catastrophic' cyberattack, data breach

The Internet Archive, an online repository of web pages, was offline Thursday after its founder confirmed a major cyberattack that left the site defaced and exposed the data of millions of users.

Brewster Kahle, the founder and digital librarian, acknowledged the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack—used to disrupt a website or server—and said he was working to upgrade security.

The attack led to the "defacement of our website" and a breach of usernames, emails and passwords, Kahle wrote in a brief post on X, formerly Twitter, late Wednesday, without offering details.

In a new post on Thursday, Kahle said hackers had knocked down the Internet Archive's main site and its "Open Library," an open source catalogue of digitized books.

The Internet Archive is "being cautious and prioritizing keeping data safe at the expense of service availability," he wrote.