By Juliet Umeh

The USA-based Internet Archive, the non-profit digital library known for its popular Wayback Machine, has confirmed a significant data breach, affecting 31 million users.

The breach has raised concerns over the security of the internet’s key historical repository, which is famed for archiving billions of web pages.

On Wednesday, users were shocked by a defaced landing page announcing the breach, which included a mocking message: “Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!” HIBP, or “Have I Been Pwned,” is a service used to check if personal data has been compromised in past breaches. The site’s founder, Troy Hunt, confirmed the authenticity of the breach.

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, explained that a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack escalated into a security breach. “We’ve disabled the JS library the hackers used to deface our website, scrubbed systems, and enhanced security protocols,” Kahle said, assuring users that more updates would follow.

Despite these reassurances, users are concerned about the long-term implications of the attack, especially given the platform’s vital role in preserving digital history. The breach has sparked questions about the Internet Archive’s ability to protect user data moving forward, while a pop-up on the Wayback Machine encourages users to contact publishers to restore lost content.

As the Internet Archive addresses the fallout, the incident underscores the growing threats to even the most trusted institutions of digital preservation, leaving millions wondering how their data will be safeguarded in the future.