Reply To: Internet Archive hacked, data breach impacts 31 million users

[thumbtak]

The Internet Archive, home of the Wayback Machine, suffered a massive data breach impacting an estimated 31 million users. The breach included a JavaScript alert on October 9th, warning users about the security incident. The hackers had access to users’ email addresses, screen names, timestamps of password changes, bcrypt hashed passwords, and internal data. The SQL database stolen weighs 6.4 GB. The most recent password change timestamp in the leak was September 28th, 2024, suggesting the hackers were in the systems for weeks before the breach was announced.

Despite being aware of the breach, the Internet Archive team failed to change many of the API keys and tokens, allowing hackers to access 800,000+ support tickets. The hackers claim to have stolen 7 terabytes of additional data, but this hasn’t been confirmed publicly. The motive behind the hack is unclear, but speculation suggests it could be related to copyright infringement lawsuits against the Internet Archive. The hackers found an exposed GitLab configuration file since December 2022, which allowed them to download the Internet Archive’s source code and steal credentials to the database management system.