[UPDATED] Archive of Our Own Is Back Online After a Massive DDoS Attack

The Archive of Our Own—the largest digital library for fanfiction currently operating, and one of the highest-trafficked sites in the world—was temporarily unavailable after it experienced a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack from a hacker group calling itself “Anonymous Sudan.” Ao3 reported the outage early on the morning of July 10 and had restored service by around noon EST July 11.

While Anonymous Sudan is posing as a religious hacktivist group, it’s much more likely that the people behind the digital hacker group are an offshoot of the Killnet group, which is suspected to be backed by the Kremlin, according to Trustwave, a cybersecurity subsidiary company of Singtel. Anonymous Sudan also recently targeted Microsoft Outlook, UPS, and Scandinavian Airlines, causing major problems for all the services, at least briefly. If it thought it was going to have easier pickings with a site like AO3, which is run primarily by volunteers, it might have been mistaken.

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In response to our request for comment, the Archive of Our Own directed us to their recently-posted blog post addressing the attacks. They iterated that they are working to mitigate the attacks, that user data is not compromised, and that people should continue to use the site as normal.

Updated 7/12, 5:03 PM EST, with a blog post from AO3 clarifying the situation.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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