Internet Archive Data Breach: Over 31 Million User Accounts Exposed on ‘Have I Been Pwned’


The Internet Archive, known for its Wayback Machine, recently experienced a data breach exposing approximately 31 million user accounts, including usernames, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. Founder Brewster Kahle confirmed the cyberattack on social media, which led to service disruptions. The breach is believed to have involved a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, overwhelming the site with traffic. Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt noted that the breach likely occurred over a week prior to the recent outage and suggested that multiple parties may be involved in this incident. Users were alerted when a message appeared on the site referencing the breach and directing them to “Have I Been Pwned,” a platform for checking compromised accounts.

 


The Internet Archive, known for its Wayback Machine, has suffered a data breach affecting approximately 31 million user accounts. Founder Brewster Kahle confirmed the cyberattack on social media platform X, which disrupted services. He stated that usernames, email addresses, and encrypted passwords were compromised.

Kahle announced on Thursday, “Services are currently halted to upgrade internal systems. We apologize for the disruption.” Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive is a non-profit organization providing free access to a vast collection of videos, books, audio files, and images, with the Wayback Machine allowing users to view past versions of websites.

According to Kahle, hackers executed a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the site, overwhelming it with excessive traffic and causing it to crash or become inaccessible. Users noticed something was amiss when a strange message appeared on the website, stating, “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!” HIBP stands for “Have I Been Pwned,” a site that lets users check if their personal information has been compromised.

Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt, founder of HIBP, noted on X that the breach likely occurred over a week prior to the recent outage. He received initial details about the breach on September 30 but began analyzing the data on October 5. Hunt indicated that “multiple parties” might be involved in this security breach, highlighting the complexity of the situation with its mix of breach, defacement, and DDoS attacks.

source:

ABP Live

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