4chan is partially back online after being down for almost two weeks due to a significant hack. The site went offline on April 14, with the hacker leaking sensitive data, including a list of moderators and “janitors.” One janitor confirmed that they believed the data was authentic.
During the outage, some observers prematurely declared the infamous image-sharing site dead. Journalist Ryan Broderick of Wired wrote that 4chan had transformed from an early internet hub into a “fan club for mass shooters” and “the beating heart of far-right fascism.”
However, 4chan’s team responded defiantly on X, asking, “Wired says ‘4chan is dead.’ Is that so?” On Friday, the site made its return.
In a blog post, 4chan’s team revealed the hack was carried out by a hacker using a UK IP address. The hacker exploited a “bogus PDF upload” to gain access to one of the site’s servers, where they exfiltrated database tables and source code before defacing the site. This triggered a server shutdown to prevent further damage.
The team acknowledged the breach was “catastrophic” and blamed it on insufficient resources to update the site’s infrastructure. The post also pointed to external pressure from advertisers and service providers who had backed out due to activist campaigns.
The team quickly replaced the breached server, but certain site features remain unavailable. PDF uploads have been temporarily disabled, and a board for Flash animations is offline due to security concerns over .swf files.
As of Sunday afternoon, the site’s status checker showed the boards and front page were back online, although image and thumbnail functions were still down. The post concluded with a message of resilience: “4chan is back. No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.”
