OpenAI hints at DDoS attack behind ChatGPT outage

Updated on: 15 November 2023

Vilius Petkauskas
Deputy Editor

ChatGPT OpenAI DDoS — Image by Cybernews.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its API are facing “periodic outages” that resemble distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

ChatGPT, the AI-powered large language model-based chatbot, is dealing with “periodic outages,” the company said.

The disruption also impacts ChatGPT’s application programming interface (API), which allows developers to integrate the chatbot into their own services.

OpenAI dealt with a “major outage” lasting nearly two hours on Wednesday. Even though the company fixed the problem around 11 a.m. EST, “periodic outages” resurfaced around 3 p.m.

“We are dealing with periodic outages due to an abnormal traffic pattern reflective of a DDoS attack. We are continuing work to mitigate this,” OpenAI’s most recent update says.

The hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan (AS) took credit for the alleged attack, claiming that it’s targeting OpenAI over the company’s supposedly “biased” stance towards Israel.

While AS’s true allegiances are far from clear, the group positions itself as pro-Islam and claims to support Palestine. Together with the pro-Russian Killnet gang, AS started targeting Israel immediately after Hamas militants launched the October 7th attacks in the regions bordering Gaza.

Even though Anonymous Sudan has claimed responsibility for the outages plaguing OpenAI, there’s so far no technical evidence that the group was actually behind them. Hacktivist groups sometimes falsely link themselves to disruptions to inflate their perceived capabilities.