It’s all hands on deck for the popular fanfiction website Archive of Our Own (AO3), as it has been hit with distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, taking the site offline since Monday. For those unaware, a DDoS attack is defined as malicious attempts to “disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.”

AO3 is considered by many to be one of the major cornerstones of the online fandom space. Server disruptions have been a common problem for the site, but this recent attack has many fans concerned.

It looks like the Archive is under a DDoS attack causing the servers to fall over. Our volunteer sysadmins are working on countermeasures. Please be patient with us, we’ll be back!

— AO3 Status (@AO3_Status) July 10, 2023

A group claiming to be Anonymous Sudan, a hacker group that has previously taken credit for DDoS attacks on larger tech companies like Microsoft, has taken credit for the DDoS attacks on AO3. The reasoning for the attacks appears to be “religiously and politically motivated” particularly due to AO3 hosting NSFW and LQBTQ content. The group has since issued a ransom demand against AO3 for $30k in Bitcoin and has threatened to keep the fanfiction site down for weeks if the company doesn’t comply.

That said, AO3 has notified its user base to take the group’s claims with skepticism, believing that the group may be lying about its identity and the reasoning for its attacks. In addition to that, AO3 of the site disruptions on Monday morning before clarifying later that afternoon that its site was in fact being targeted by a DDOS attack.

We do not condone anti-Muslim sentiments under any circumstances. Additionally, to reiterate: cybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites. View the group’s statements with skepticism.

— AO3 Status (@AO3_Status) July 10, 2023

AO3 is run by the non-profit organization The Organization for Transformative Works and is supported entirely by it’s volunteer staff and user donations. While its unknown whether the organization would be able to meet the hacker group’s demands, time will tell.