"Hack of 4chan and leak of internal data."
The well-known website was taken down and has been operating intermittently, while hackers leaked alleged data such as the email addresses of the moderators and the source code.
The online forum 4chan was the victim of a cyber attack last Tuesday. At the time of writing this article, the 4chan website was down, and users on social media reported that the platform experienced intermittent outages for several hours. Messages on a competing forum celebrated the hacking, and one user claimed that the attacker had been inside the 4chan system "for over a year."
Several screenshots were circulating online that allegedly showed the backend of the site, including the source code and templates that allow for user bans, access that is exclusive to the site's moderators. Among the leaked data was a list of alleged moderators and "servers," users with the ability to delete posts and threads, although with fewer privileges compared to moderators, who, for example, can see users' IP addresses.
Given 4chan's known ties to violent political movements, this cyber attack could put the people managing these forums at risk, as they have become central to far-right movements. Attempts were made to contact various leaked email addresses, and a conversation was established with one of the involved users. A 4chan server who spoke on the condition of anonymity expressed his "confidence" that both the leaked data and the screenshots are "completely real." According to the server, "I have no reason to believe otherwise." He also mentioned that, although 4chan has experienced leaks in the past, this is a problem of greater magnitude.
The server expressed concern about the leaked information, indicating that the hypothesis of 4chan having been effectively taken over by a hacker is probably "worse" than the screenshots, from the perspective of the site's ongoing operation. Furthermore, it seems that the hacker obtained personal information from 4chan Pass subscribers, users who pay to evade post counters and access a VIP forum.
4chan is recognized as an ostensibly anonymous forum that operates as the dark side of the web. Generally, it is an image board where often bored users attempt to shock each other with extremely disturbing content. At times, 4chan's culture manifests in the real world through innocent memes or hateful rhetoric that inspires acts of right-wing terrorism. Memes like Pepe the Frog, rage comics, and wojaks were popularized there, but its strongest legacy comes from its political boards, where alt-right rhetoric can radicalize youth towards white supremacy ideals. Groups like QAnon, which support former President Donald Trump, emerged from 4chan. The shooter who killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, was a frequent 4chan user from his teenage years. Similarly, in 2022, an 18-year-old shot and killed 10 Black people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York; his 180-page manifesto borrowed rhetoric from the Christchurch shooter.