The Internet Archive (archive.org) is back online following a recent cyber attack, but it is currently operating in “read-only” mode. One of the world’s largest digital libraries and its popular service, the Wayback Machine, suffered a massive DDoS attack, resulting in a data breach. The attackers accessed a database containing 31 million unique user records, including email addresses, usernames, and hashed passwords.

In its current state, users can browse archived pages, but the ability to add new content is temporarily unavailable. The Internet Archive’s founder, Brewster Kahle, stated: “The service is back online, but temporary outages may occur as we carry out necessary technical work.” This measure aims to fix vulnerabilities discovered during the cyber attack.

The Internet Archive team is working hard to restore key services and strengthen security. Alongside restoring basic functionality, employee mailboxes and crawlers interacting with national libraries have already been brought back online.

The Wayback Machine, a key tool of the Internet Archive, provides access to over 916 billion web pages, making it a vital resource for exploring the history of the internet. Its importance has grown significantly since Google removed its own cached links from search results and started incorporating links to archived pages in the Wayback Machine, making it the primary tool for accessing old versions of websites and archival content.

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