Internet Archive Restores Wayback Machine in Read-Only Mode after Series of DDoS Attacks
The Internet Archive, renowned for its Wayback Machine that preserves web history, faced a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks starting October 9, which temporarily took its services offline. Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, shared updates via X ( formerly twitter ), outlining the steps taken to restore functionality and safeguard the organization’s vast data repository.
On October 10, Kahle confirmed that the DDoS attacks affected both archive.org and openlibrary.org, leading to a suspension of services. He also revealed a breach that compromised usernames, emails, and encrypted passwords:
"What we know: DDOS attack–fended off for now; defacement of our website via JS library; breach of usernames/email/salted-encrypted passwords." – Brewster Kahle, October 10.
The Internet Archive’s team responded swiftly by disabling the compromised JavaScript (JS) library, upgrading security, and prioritizing data integrity. Although the attack was contained, the decision was made to keep services offline to further protect the organization’s extensive data collection.
Kahle reassured users that the data remained secure:
"The data is safe. Services are offline as we examine and strengthen them. Sorry, but needed. @internetarchive staff is working hard." – Brewster Kahle, October 11.
The downtime lasted for some days, during which the Internet Archive team worked tirelessly to restore key functionalities. Services like email resumed on October 13, and Kahle confirmed that other sub-services would be brought back online in stages, prioritizing essential tasks like contract crawls for national libraries.
On October 14th, the Wayback Machine returned in a read-only mode, allowing users to access archived pages but will not save new content:
"The @internetarchive’s Wayback Machine resumed in a provisional, read-only manner. Sorry, no Save Page Now yet." – Brewster Kahle, October 14.
As of the latest update, Kahle confirmed that the Wayback Machine's request volume has returned to normal, handling 1,500 requests per second:
"@waybackmachine volume is back to normal: 1,500 requests per second." – Brewster Kahle
However, other services remain unavailable.
While restoration efforts continue, the Internet Archive warns that further maintenance may lead to additional service interruptions.
With the possibility of further service suspensions for additional maintenance, let's hope the Internet Archive recovers completely from this attack soon and resumes full functionality.
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