Hellheighthuman - Untitled

PSA for Ao3 Users:

Be sure to check the URL before clicking on any site to go to Ao3. I noticed today when I searched via Google Chrome that there is a false Ao3 site that comes up as the first result.

It says archiveofour.net

When you go to it, it looks EXACTLY like Ao3, but it is NOT.

When I curiously tapped the search bar, a pop-up opened to direct me elsewhere. I believe this to be a spoof site for the purpose of either phishing or possibly hijacking PCs for mining bitcoin or some other malicious purpose.

I could be wrong. Perhaps it's a proxy site- but the fact that it redirected me to yet another suspicious-looking URL is alarming.

I let a few friends know, but it doesn't appear on every browser. @plague-of-insomnia mentioned using CC and Safari, and it didn't appear for them.

Ya'll be careful, and remember to always check the URL! At first glance, this spoof site is very convincing. If I had been half asleep, I may not have noticed it was different.

Please reblog to make your friends and other fic writers and readers aware!

This is the Money Cat 💰🐈 reblog and money will come your way!

If u don’t rb, don’t worry.. it’s just a stupid tumblr post 👌

IG: ketzal_coatl

I certainly didn’t see this being on my 2023 bingo card.

sometimes having divorced parents is sitting out waiting for your ride and other times is walking away while they insult the other

What's happening to AO3 right now?

As you may have noticed already, Archive of Our Own is currently down. This is temporary, but unfortunately we now know that this is much deeper than we thought.

AO3 is currently the victim of a DDoS* attack orchestrated by "Anonymous Sudan"

*Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack is a cyber-attack in which the attacker strives to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network

Why? Because AO3 is home to thousands of LGBTQIA+ content and lots of NSFW content.

They're doing this as an Anti-LGBTQ+ attack. If they're doing this for or from America specifically, we're not sure. But this is what AO3 is facing at this time.

What can we do?

Spread the word. Spread the fucking word.

And PLEASE, whatever you do...

Stop using the Archive of Our Own website at this time.

The moderators, showrunners, and service providers all need to repair the damage done by this group. The amount of data flooding in from people trying to log in will cause more problems.

Keep yourselves off of the website.

Yes, the site is accessible but PLEASE do not use the site until they give the all clear.

They're still trying to fight off this DDoS attack. If you overwhelm the servers with your requests (ie. next chapter, opening bookmarks, etc.), it will be harder for them to get it done.

For anyone that needs further confirmation:

Please make sure you check the date and time of posts like this, too.

As far as I am currently aware, AO3 officials have not yet given the all clear.

(Posted July 10, 2023, 6:50pm CST)