Archive of Our Own reports security incident and takes site offline
- Status
- Unverified: only social posts report this so far
- Kind
- Security outage
- Vendor
- Archive of Our Own
- Product
- AO3
- First seen
Summary
AO3 says it detected evidence of a security incident earlier on the day of its update and is still early in its response. The site will remain down while the team investigates and determines the scope of the incident.
If you use Archive of Our Own
Change your AO3 password, and any other account that uses the same password.
Be cautious of emails or messages claiming to be from AO3 that ask for login details.
Follow AO3's official status updates for confirmed details on scope and recovery.
Watch for any official notice about whether user data was affected.
Check AO3's official status page and announcements for confirmation
Watch for any official notice about account or password changes before acting on it
What the sources say 11
· Bluesky: “Earlier today, we detected evidence of a security incident on AO3.” Source
· Bluesky: “I have no involvement with AO3 but I have great sympathy for what looks to be a security incident so severe they may have literally air-gapped the servers” Source
· Bluesky: “went down hard as a response to a “security incident.”” Source
· Mastodon: “yes that fanfiction website received a cyber attack and they are now took down the website to mitigate the attack.” Source
· Bluesky: “Ooooof so the AO3 maintenance down is actually because of a security incident, and they need time to audit and try to figure it out.” Source
· Bluesky: “What on earth is going on over at AO3 that it’s going to take A MONTH to bring to back online from a security incident?” Source
· Bluesky: “it was a security incident, but they're saying all the data is safe” Source
· Bluesky: “the ao3 outage (due to massive, overwhelming "security incident") appears to not even be news here” Source
· Bluesky: “In a major blow to both the terminally online and the criminally horny, the fan fiction website Archive of Our Own has temporarily shut down due to a “security incident,” according to a site update.” Source
· Bluesky: “Internet fan-fiction repository AO3 might be down for a month due to "security incident"” Source
· Bluesky: “Popular Fan Fiction Site AO3 Could Be Offline for a Month Following 'Security Incident' https://gizmodo.com/popular-fan-fiction-site-ao3-could-be-offline-for-a-month-following-security-incident-2000833091” Source