4chan is partially back online following a nearly two-week outage triggered by a serious hacking incident earlier this month.
The site initially went offline on April 14, after an attacker accessed its servers. The hacker reportedly exploited vulnerabilities in the upload system, leaking sensitive internal information including lists of moderators and site “janitors.” One janitor later confirmed to media that the leaked information appeared authentic.
During the platform’s downtime, at least one online commentator prematurely declared 4chan dead, arguing that its cultural impact had become more associated with extremist content and controversial incidents than its origins as an early anonymous forum for internet culture and memes. The site’s operators strongly disagreed, countering firmly through social media to insist that the site was far from finished.
In a Friday update posted to the official 4chan blog, site administrators detailed the extent of the intrusion. They explained that the hacker, using an IP address based in the UK, had infiltrated 4chan by taking advantage of a flaw in the PDF upload feature. This breach allowed the intruder to extract database records and significant portions of the site’s source code. Moderators discovered the breach as soon as vandalization attempts began, prompting them to shut down access entirely to mitigate further damage.
Describing the impact as “catastrophic,” the site’s operators attributed the security breach primarily to severe resource limitations and a sustained lack of funding. They pointed specifically to the ongoing financial constraints placed upon the site by payment processors and advertisers succumbing to external pressures. Advertisers and providers willing to cooperate with the site had become particularly scarce due to activism targeting 4chan’s notoriously controversial content.
Following the breach, the compromised server was replaced, though certain services remain inactive as precautionary measures—uploads involving PDFs are temporarily disabled, and one board dedicated to Flash animations remains offline indefinitely. Operators explained that permitting such animation files posed an inherent security risk that they could not currently neutralize.
As of Sunday afternoon, some core site features, such as the boards and the site’s homepage, were restored, although posting functionality and image uploads continued to face disruptions.
Despite these setbacks, 4chan’s administrators remain defiant. The blog post reaffirmed their commitment to keeping the site operational, emphasizing the unique nature of 4chan’s community. “4chan is back,” they asserted strongly, concluding, “No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.”
