Users have been unable to access 4chan since early Tuesday, with complaints flooding outage monitoring sites. Security researchers claim the outage may be linked to a “comprehensive hack.”
The outage has been reported since the early hours of Tuesday, with thousands of users reporting the site is inaccessible on Downdetector.com, a website outage monitoring site. Some users theorized that a data breach could be responsible for the unexpected outage.
We have reached out to 4chan for comment and will update the article once we receive a reply.
Cybernews researchers looked into the hack claims and discovered unknown actors sharing lists with supposed 4chan's moderator's login credentials as well overall platform's staff mailing list.
However, at the time of writing it is unclear whether the data is legitimate.
According to security researcher Priit Rebane, 4chan’s servers were hacked with attackers posting images of admin view, leaking the website's source code, and sharing posts from the private 4chan moderator board.
“Seems like the attacker had shell access on the server, so this might not be all. The site itself is down right now,” Rebane posted on Mastodon.
4chan, the internet’s litter box, got hacked. https://infosec.exchange/@rebane2001/114341178486935903
undefined Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog.cyberplace.social.ap.brid.gy) April 15, 2025 at 12:22 PM
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The site was indeed unavailable at the time of writing.
Meanwhile, Kevin Beaumont, cybersecurity researcher and former senior threat intelligence analyst at Microsoft, said the outage looks like an attack that might take the site out for a long period of time.
If confirmed, the attack could significantly impact the website's operations. For one, "shell access" exposes administrative tools, user data, and other sensitive information.
This level of access could enable attackers to modify the site's functionality, allowing threat actors to insert malicious code or delete essential data.
Due to 4chan's notorious reputation, leaking admin identities, could pose to their privacy ands security, Cybernews Information Security researcher Neringa Macijauskaitė believes.
"If confirmed, the leak could enable doxxing or password reuse attacks across platforms. Given 4chan's culture, exposed identities may lead to targeted trolling, harassment, or coordinated abuse campaigns," Macijauskaitė explained.
4chan is an anonymous imageboard infamous for allowing users to post at times extreme content. Launched in 2003, the website started out as a place to discuss and share anime-related content. However, the website gradually become a "go-to" place for far-right supporters.
my prediction: 4chan will be offline for a bit because of a) overwhelming traffic, b) waves of people trying to repeat the breach, and c) admin needs to do some overdue patching. I'm expecting it'll be back online in full by the end of the week.
undefined Jared Holt (@jaredlholt.bsky.social) April 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Ironically, the website has been used to broadcast several data leaks in the past, including Disney, Microsoft, Twitch, Intel, and others.
Users on Reddit, X, and other social media platforms were quick to deem the platform dead. Others were more cheerful, adding that a hack was destined for a website with such a notorious history.
"Kinda shocked in all of 4chin's history that it took this long for something like this to happen," Reddit user Captainjimmyrussell said.
"Couldn’t of happened to nicer people," another Redditor, Much-Tea-3049, joked.
However, not all were convinced that the suspected hack will be the end of 4chan. For example, security researcher Jared Holt called the hack a "real snoozer," adding that the platform will stay down for short period of time and will fully come back.
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