By Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The notorious internet messageboard 4chan has been hacked, according to posts circulating online, some of which said that a the hacker involved had revealed identifying details of the site’s moderators to the public.
The alleged hack first came to light when a defunct section of the site sprang back to life with the words “U GOT HACKED” emblazoned across the top, according to Wired magazine.
Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybercrime monitoring company Hudson Rock, said the claim of a hack “looks legit,” citing the publicly circulating screenshots purporting to show 4chan’s backend infrastructure.
The publication TechCrunch cited an unnamed 4chan moderator as saying they had no reason to dispute the authenticity of the screenshots, and the site was only intermittently available on Tuesday.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the details of the incident, nor who might be behind the alleged hack.
Messages sent to 4chan’s press email went unreturned. One of the two dozen or so alleged moderators purportedly exposed in the hack wrote back using their 4chan email address to say that the site had released a “video statement.” The user then pointed Reuters to an unrelated, explicit four-minute video montage. A request for further information was followed by a link to a different video with similar content.
Sparely designed, aggressively irreverent and lightly moderated, 4chan has for years served as an incubator for some of the internet’s most viral memes, as well a range of subcultures. The amorphous internet vigilante group Anonymous coalesced on 4chan, as have extreme misogynists colloquially known as “incels” and elements of America’s extreme right. It has long been notorious as a place to share gory videos, and more recently became known for hosting AI-generated nonconsenual pornography.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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