Internet Archive and Wayback Machine are down again
The Internet Archive can’t catch a break.
Just a day after the Internet Archive posted the restoration of its Wayback Machine and other services on its blog, the site has gone dark again. As of this writing, a visit to the Archive’s homepage shows a message confirming that while Archive-It and its blog are back online, the rest of the Internet Archive’s services remain temporarily unavailable.
It’s another frustrating setback for users who rely on the digital library’s vast resources, though details on who is causing this new disruption are still unclear. At this point, it looks like this is the fourth—yes, fourth—cyberattack on the Internet Archive since the beginning of October.
The first breach, on October 9th, saw two separate groups of hackers compromise the personal data of 31 million users, including emails, screen names, and encrypted passwords. Following that, a second and third attack targeted the Archive’s Zendesk support system— with the hackers even responding to support requests sent to IA.
The timing of these attacks on the Internet Archive—and other online book repositories like the British and Toronto public libraries—couldn’t be worse. With the Internet Archive having already lost legal battles with publishing giants like Hachette, HarperCollins, and Penguin Random House, these cyberattacks only add to the chaos.
This article will be updated as more information is gathered.
