Internet Archive hackers continue to send email replies; site remains read-only

The Internet Archive has confirmed a data breach that compromised its user authentication database, containing information of 31 million unique records, while simultaneously experiencing Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, causing the Wayback Machine to also be impacted by going offline and in read-only mode with no updates possible.

The threat actor that compromised the website nine days prior to the report shared a 6.4GB SQL file called “ia_users.sql” containing: email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, Bcrypt-hashed passwords, and other internal data. Although unrelated to the security breach, the DDoS attacks occurred at an odd timing.

Additionally it was revealed the archive is also facing legal woes, with the potential of bankruptcy over copyright infringement lawsuits filed against it by publishers and music labels.