Home / Technology / Fan Fiction Giant AO3 Down: Security Breach Suspected
Fan Fiction Giant AO3 Down: Security Breach Suspected
30 Oct
Summary
- Archive of Our Own experienced a major outage Thursday due to a security incident.
- Full recovery may take up to four weeks, with potential for read-only access.
- User data theft is possible, prompting password change recommendations.
The fan fiction repository Archive of Our Own (AO3) went offline on Thursday, impacting millions of users worldwide. The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), the nonprofit managing AO3, initially cited maintenance but later confirmed a security incident as the cause.
Restoring the website is expected to take between two and four weeks. During this time, AO3 might be accessible in a degraded, read-only state, with the possibility of further unexpected downtime for recovery efforts. OTW has stated that no user-generated content has been deleted.
However, OTW has not ruled out the possibility of user data theft. Information potentially compromised includes usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and hashed passwords. As a precautionary measure, users are strongly advised to change passwords on any other online platforms where they reuse their AO3 credentials.
This incident occurs amidst a notable increase in cybersecurity events, including recent vulnerabilities in PHP affecting platforms like WordPress and a significant data leak from the Department of Homeland Security. AO3, founded in 2008, hosts over 18 million fanworks for millions of registered users across numerous fandoms.
