On 20 October 2024, the Internet Archive sufferred their third security breach in as many weeks. The nonprofit digital library’s latest breach came after two prior high-profile breaches on 6 October and 12 October 2024, when hackers took advantage of unrotated Zendesk API tokens to access and possibly download sensitive data from the organisation’s support platform, including user identification documents. Like the other breaches, the most recent breach on 20 October likely stemmed from the organisation failing to rotate unused tokens out of memory, the same security exposures that allowed hackers to gain access to the Archive’s Zendesk support platform on 6 October as well as their GitLab source code platform, which resulted in the full exposure of 31 million users’ personal data on 12 October.
After the initial breach on 9 October 2024 – a combined data-theft paired with a DDoS attack delivered by separate groups – the Archive continued to be dogged by security problems. Further breaches ensued as loopholes in the remaining infrastructures’ token management were attacked again and again. This sequence of breaches is a sobering indictment of sloppy security practices, and suggests that the attackers are likely motivated by a desire to delegitimise the Archive by piling up their successes. Despite the damage, community support for the Internet Archive remains strong – as evidenced by a flood of solidarity on social media.
Source: Forbes
