Internet Archive begins its third day battling a DDos attack, affecting service for users around the world.
As a nonprofit research library that houses millions of historical materials, including all the history of Aruba, Internet Archive provides free access to digital document collections. For three days he has been hit intermittently DDoSing (distributed denial of service attack). This is a form of cyberattack that has affected the service throughout the week.
According to library staff, the Internet Archive's collections are secure, although the service remains inconsistent, affecting whether or not you can access the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, which has preserved more than 866 billion web pages.
Internet Archive responds to DDoS attack
The attacks began on Sunday, with DDoS intruders launching thousands of fake requests for information per second. This overloaded the service and caused persistent problems. At the time of writing, the source or identity of the attackers is unknown.
“Fortunately, the collections are safe, but we are sorry that the denial-of-service attack has taken us offline intermittently over the past three days,” said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. .
“With the support of others and the hard work of staff, we are strengthening our defenses to provide more reliable access to our library. What is new is that this attack was sustained, impactful, targeted, adaptive and, above all, nasty.
This DDoS attack is not isolated, with cyberattacks becoming increasingly common against libraries and other information-based institutions. Other recent victims include the British Library, the Solano County Public Library (California), the Berlin Museum of Natural History, and the London Public Library of Ontario (Canada).
The attack comes after the Internet Archive was also recently sued by the American Book Publishing and Recording Industry Associations, organizations alleging copyright infringement and demanding combined damages of worth hundreds of millions of dollars from all libraries.
“If our customers around the world think this latest situation is upsetting, then they should be very concerned about what the publishing and recording industries have in mind,” Kahle added. “I think they are trying to completely destroy this library and hamper all libraries around the world. But just as we resist the DDoS attack, we appreciate all the support that allows us to fend off this unfair litigation against our library and others.
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