The Timely Restoration of the Internet Archive's Services Occurs.
Upon experiencing a significant cyberattack that incapacitated its site for around a month, the Internet Archive made an announcement on Monday, showcasing the reinstatement of one of its indispensable services - the Save Page Now feature. This feature enables users to save web pages to the organization's digital library.
In a public statement on social media, the Internet Archive revealed that webpages users had attempted to save since October 9 are now being archived. Nonetheless, they didn't provide a timeline as to when the process would be completely concluded. If concerns arose regarding the potential loss of election coverage, the organization asserts its commitment to address the backlog. For those who paused archiving due to the website's downtime, it's time to recommence operations.
Since October 21, the Internet Archive had operated its collection in read-only mode while meticulously working on restoring its services.
A group of hackers, going by the name SN_BLACKMETA, claimed responsibility for portions of the October 8 attack, which included a DDoS operation that brought the Internet Archive's website to a standstill. SN_BLACKMETA had also reportedly claimed responsibility for an earlier DDoS attack against the archive in May.
According to the security news outlet Bleeping Computer, a separate attacker was responsible for another attack on the archive that occurred concurrently: a data breach resulting in the theft of 31 million user credentials, including email addresses, screen names, and Bcrypt-hashed passwords.
Posting on the SN_BLACKMETA platform, the hackers declared their targeting of the Internet Archive due to its alleged affiliation with the USA, given the US government's perceived support for 'Israel' and its alleged involvement in 'genocide'.
Established in 1996, the Internet Archive is a San Francisco-based nonprofit offering access to archived web pages, digitized books, and various media through collaborations with numerous libraries and partners.
The Internet Archive's unrivaled collection currently encompasses 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, 15 million audio recordings, 10.6 million videos, 4.8 million images, and 1 million software programs.
While the Internet Archive receives some funding from the National Science Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission's program supporting schools and libraries, the majority of its operating budget comes from philanthropic donors.
Following the Internet Archive's announcement of website restoration on October 21, it seems that hackers still maintained access to certain parts of the organization's systems. These hackers communicated messages to some users through the archive's Zendesk IT support system, stating that the nonprofit had yet to address the exposure of many API keys in the GitLab secrets.
A hacker who claimed responsibility for the data breach reportedly informed Bleeping Computer that the Internet Archive had left a GitLab configuration file exposed on one of its development servers, containing authentication tokens that allowed the attacker to download the organization's source code.
The Internet Archive expressed optimism about using advanced technology in the future to bolster its security measures, aiming to prevent such incidents from recurring. In light of the recent cyberattack, the organization emphasized the importance of investing in tech upgrades to safeguard its vast digital library.
