Archive of Our Own (AO3), the volunteer-run fanfiction repository, went offline on October 29 following a security intrusion. Initial estimates placed downtime at 12 hours, but the site's leadership revised that to two to four weeks by later that day.
On October 30, AO3's volunteer team disclosed that they remain "in the early stages" of determining the intrusion's scope. The archive itself and associated user data such as bookmarks and kudos remain intact. Donor information is stored separately and has not been compromised.
However, AO3 is "unable to rule out" that its user database was breached. User accounts contain emails, usernames, IP addresses, and hashed passwords. The team advises users to change any passwords reused from AO3 elsewhere.
AO3 expects to restore the site in a "degraded" state over the coming weeks, offering incomplete or read-only access with intermittent downtime continuing. The motivation behind the attack remains unclear. The report notes that AO3's large user base and potentially weak passwords could make the user database valuable on the black market, though ideological motivations cannot be ruled out.