Notorious internet forum 4chan was hacked on Tuesday.
At the time of writing, 4chan’s website was not loading, and users on social media reported the site being intermittently down for hours.
Messages on a rival message board, which TechCrunch has seen, celebrated the hack, with one person claiming that the hacker responsible for the breach was inside 4chan’s system “for over a year.”
Several screenshots showing what appears to be 4chan’s back end circulated online, showing the site’s alleged backend, source code, and templates to ban users, which would only be accessible to the site’s moderators. Also in the leaked data was a list of alleged 4chan moderators and “janitors,” who are users who can delete posts and threads, but have fewer privileges than moderators, who can also see IP addresses of users, for example.
Given 4chan’s known violent political ties, this cyberattack could potentially expose the people who run these forums, which have become central to alt-right movements.
TechCrunch reached out to several email addresses that were leaked and spoke to one of the people behind one of the email addresses. One 4chan janitor who spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity said they are “confident” the leaked data and screenshots are “all real.”
“I have no reason to believe otherwise,” the janitor said.
“I’m somewhat taken back. 4chan’s moderation team has had leaks in the past, but this is obviously an issue of greater magnitude,” the janitor told TechCrunch. “I’m not happy about the situation. I’m sure most others aren’t, either. But many of us have been doing this for a long time. Doxxing is a longstanding pastime on 4chan, and the possibility that we could be exposed has always been there.”
“I’ve been most concerned with the leaked information, for obvious reasons,” said the janitor. “I’d wager that the fact that 4chan was effectively taken over by a hacker(s) is probably ‘worse’ than screenshots, at least from the perspective of the site’s continued operation.”
The janitor also said that it appears that the hacker obtained the personal information of 4chan Pass subscribers, who are users who pay the site to bypass post counters and access a VIP board, per the janitor.
4chan did not respond to an email requesting comment sent to the site’s press email address.
4chan is an ostensibly anonymous internet forum that functions like the dark underbelly of the web. Most of the time, it’s an image board that seems to be populated by bored users who try to shock each other often by posting some of the most vile content imaginable. Other times, 4chan’s cultural exports seep into the real world as innocuous memes or as hateful rhetoric that inspires right-wing terrorism.
Memes like Pepe the Frog, rage comics, and wojaks were originally popularized on 4chan but have become ubiquitous across the internet. Yet 4chan’s strongest legacy comes from its political boards, where alt-right rhetoric can radicalize young users into adopting white supremacist ideals. QAnon, a group of far-right conspiracy theorists who back President Donald Trump, originated from 4chan.
The shooter who in 2019 murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, had been a regular 4chan user since he was a teenager. In 2022, a then-18-year-old man murdered 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; his 180-page manifesto borrowed from the Christchurch shooter’s online rhetoric.