Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-17

[Washinton Post piece]

Last week, along with a DDOS attack and exposure of patron email addresses and encrypted passwords, the Internet Archive’s website javascript was defaced, leading us to bring the site down to access and improve our security. 

The stored data of the Internet Archive is safe and we are working on resuming services safely. This new reality requires heightened attention to cyber security and we are responding. We apologize for the impact of these library services being unavailable.

The Wayback Machine, Archive-It, scanning, and national library crawls have resumed, as well as email, blog, helpdesk, and social media communications.  Our team is working around the clock across time zones to bring other services back online. In coming days more services will resume, some starting in read-only mode as full restoration will take more time. 

We’re taking a cautious, deliberate approach to rebuild and strengthen our defenses. Our priority is ensuring the Internet Archive comes online stronger and more secure.

As a library community, we are seeing other cyber attacks—for instance the British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library, and now Calgary Public Library. We hope these attacks are not indicative of a trend.

For the latest updates, please check this blog and our official social media accounts: X/Twitter, Bluesky and Mastodon.

Thank you for your patience and ongoing support.

70 thoughts on “Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-17

  1. Erin

    I’m looking forward to the old time radio shows coming back online! I listen to them every night as I fall asleep and have missed them greatly!

  2. Hachette hater

    I hope you win the last battle against those DDoS gangsters.

    Also, please keep Google Lit turned off. It runs slow and sluggish on smartphones.

  3. DANIEL CARTER

    can you please resume Internet Archive site back for watching videos please!
    i’ve being wating a long time for the site to return

  4. Anand Singh Parihar

    Please open to acess all archive for download the relative book for historical references

  5. Ali Darvishi

    Your library is very valuable and helpful. Thank you very much for your efforts and I hope everything will be normal soon.
    I really need the book ” Underground cable fault location : Clegg, Barry, 1935″. Is there a way I can read it? I always used to borrow this book from your archive.

  6. Mohammad Omar

    A useful library for researchers of all specializations. Thanks for the coordination and management.

  7. jonathan haynes

    [quote]
    Thank you for your patience and ongoing support.
    [/quote]

    Thank *you* for the update.

    (We’re rootin’ for ya!)

  8. Nada Sheppard

    The only ones happy about this might be my kids — almost all our homeschooling textbooks are on IA, so they’ve had a couple of weeks now doing half their classes. I am so sorry you have to go through this, but I am confident you can weather the storm. Thank you for making IA accessible to everyone everywhere.

  9. Brunel André

    hello
    I recently lost a JPG archive of approximately 1h30 of Indian music by Master Ebrahim that my deceased friend Sruresh Chandvankar had sent me and during a cleaning of my computer this archive was lost. Is it possible for you to send it to me in jpg. I can’t manage to find it on your site. I am an amateur music lover and this archive was for my love of Indian music and no link or commercial distribution! Thank you for doing me this favour.cordially André Brunel France

    below a message from my late Suresh Chandvankar

    Around 2000 one American lady from NY sent me audio cassette of these radio programs of around 1972 – inquiring about the artist
    This lady in turn got the tape from her teacher in Bombay who had taped these three pieces when there was a live broadcast
    Hence the quality is poor – and it is not feasible to issue it commercially – leaving aside copyrights of the radio
    Hence I Have posted them on my library at archive.org – and so far 28 visitors have visited it
    So if u wish you can download your copy from that website and try to improve or reissue yourself

    Thanks
    sureshbhai

  10. 20+ years infosec expert

    And how you exactly know that all the data is safe?
    If attackers managed to grab the user database it would be equally easy to trojanize
    stored software, include ransomware etc.
    It is common understanding that after this kind of attack data is not trusted any more
    and should be burned to the ground, as infosec guru Bruce Schneier suggests.
    Do you even have an incident handling capability?

  11. Michayla Aldrich

    I really really really really want archive.org to be back online because I miss watching videos on their like Toon in with me and lots of other videos there not to mention some of the games on their too.

  12. Sophie Weston

    Why would or why do people attack a service for all people everywhere?
    I do not understand. Could it be because it is not a monitisation scheme?
    Please help me understand. Thank you.

  13. Willis James

    Why’d did the hacker that hacks to Internet Archive and What does that will be happening to DELETE all videos, video games and everything? How can Reboot or Restoring them into Internet Archive?

  14. M G

    There are many says that these attacks for many libraries around the world to erase the world memory in order to control the world.
    Just saying.

  15. James Kyle

    Being a contributor as well as a “borrower”, I wish all the best to all the staff – And in the coming months, I hope to see the “Internet Archive” back to a normal state – With the best security to handle the assholes that caused the “meltdown”.
    James R.

  16. Carlos Martinez

    Where can I make a donation to support your efforts to recover the site with enhanced security?

  17. jas

    hello,
    when is the “https://archive.org/details/managinghealthor0000fall” website coming back up? I need the online version of the textbook for an exam next week. Please let me know asap!

  18. Peter K. Sharpen

    Dear Sirs,

    I just wanted to add my support for the Internet Archive, which is the World’s most important site, in my view. Your work is amazing. Well done to all those who are working so hard to get things up and running.

  19. queue

    I was going to blame the GoDaddy SSL certificate authority, but who really knows? Maybe the hosting service, if there is one for any branch, is vulnerable to an extent. I am also concerned about public relations in regards to influences. archive.org services does its part to foster constitutional liberty for the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. When the times arises, it will adhere to impartiality like the judiciary branch.

    Anyways, it’s about nigh time to start saving offline copies, in a “gradual” rate, like how archive.org gradually restores its services. We don’t know if it is ready to accept uploads so let’s take it easy.

  20. John H Davidson

    Sorry to hear you are having this bother, but what does “exposure of patron email addresses and encrypted passwords” imply. Are email addresses and passwords irretrievably hacked? By whom? Thanks.

  21. Thomas

    Good luck with all the hard work improving defenses, thanks for doing what you do.

    Progress so far has been very impressive, really hoping Libravox archives will come back soon.

  22. Emily

    Can someone from IA please contact me NOT from the info@archive.org account? Your Zendesk token has been hacked and received this information from a follow up email that I want to forward you.

  23. Sydney

    do you have an estimation of when Woodward’s book “Central America: a Nation Divided” will be back?

  24. Bogdan

    In addition to Wayback Machine, Archive-it, blog.archive.org, you also have the site help.archive.org working

  25. Kana Momonogi

    Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I
    provide credit and sources back to your webpage? My website is in the
    exact same niche as yours and my visitors would certainly benefit from a lot of the information you present here.
    Please let me know if this okay with you. Thanks!

  26. Mary

    I’m sorry that you were going through this
    Do you guys have a timeline for when you’re thinking it will be back online

  27. Scott Douglas LaRose

    I have been listening to volunteers read public domain books for about 25 years on libravox nd the last 2 weeks of no libravox is really disconcerting and wrong – please come back with all that you have had in public domain books so all of us folks that listen to these books we probably never would have known can still have access toan incredible treavure trove of literature and information

  28. ahmad Bawadikji

    “The website meant a lot to me, as I am a lover of reading, old books, and manuscripts of all kinds, and I benefited greatly from it. Many thanks to all the staff working on this site, and God willing, it will return better than before.”

  29. Malika-Diane

    I don’t have words to tell you how relieved I felt when I saw that the site was coming back, recovering from this attack.
    I’m poor, so I can’t help…for now. As soon as I’ll have a better situation I’ll contribute. Meanwhile, I wish you (every one working for archive.org) to know how immensely grateful I am for every thing you do

  30. stella

    Hi, I try to watch movies on archive org, I get:Sorry, the video player failed to load.(Error Code: 100001) for all movies. The same on 3 different browsers…tried extensions, clear caché and data, set time to automatic..nothing works today 21.10.2024. I hope the problem is on your side and can be fixed soon, I love archive org. Thank you. All the best

  31. Levi

    Every weekend i used to go to see this web site, because i wish for enjoyment, as this
    this web site conations genuinely nice funny material too.

  32. George

    This is ever so strange. Who in the world would have interest to knockdown Internet’s historical archive. That said, many people have an idea of what interests could be behind these attacks.
    I’m a security consultant, if I can help in any way please feel free to contact me for no charge.

  33. investlet

    I would not be surprised if these attacks were brought by certain stakeholders of various media industries. The less free access to information, the more money they make. They are directly incentivized to restrict the flow of information as much as possible to ensure their investment grows.

  34. J

    I would like to donate to help with the efforts to restore services. Please send a secure link when possible.

    Thank you

  35. Alex Ward Davies

    At present, I am unable to listen to or watch any episodes on the Archive website. I’ve tried several times to solve this problem but it’s all in vain. I hope the website returns to functioning properly soon.

  36. Edoardo Novelli

    I am the responsabile of the Italian archive of political commercials and propaganda (www.archivispotpolitici.it). Firt of all I would like thank you for your incredibile service. After a few days of total blackout out, since today the screenshots of the video are present again, but the videos are not availeable. A message saids that it is due to issues with the item contents. What does it means? Will all the contents availeable again in the next future? Is there anything that we can do? Thanks in advance

  37. Donna M Hall

    I can’t read any of the free books anymore without making an account. I have tried to make one but I cant.. I used to be able to read hundreds of books without an account.

  38. Frank R. Pelino

    Good luck upgrading your security protocols;
    Thank you for the site updates and eagerly looking forward to accessing Internet Archive once again!

  39. jxnisnotfunny

    i’m being so fr, who would dare do this to THIS website there’s literally no excuse. actually vile. hoping you all recover quickly

  40. michael

    good day. i just want to ask if login failed is also part of the website problem. because everytime im trying to login my account, not available this time. thank you

  41. Peter Rowland

    DEAR INTERNET ARCHIVE.
    PLEASE BRING BACK ALL THE VIDEOS AND ALL THE AUDIOS BACK ON INTERNET ARCHIVE WEBSITE SO I CAN WATCH MY SHOWS AND PROGAMS AND LISTEN TO MY STORIES AND LISTEN MY MUSICS SO PLEASE BRING BACK ALL THE VIDEOS AND ALL THE AUDIOS BACK ON INTERNET ARCHIVE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE.

    PETER ROWLAND. THANK YOU.

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