Infamous online platform 4chan suffered a security breach on Tuesday.

At the time of this writing, access to 4chan's website was unavailable, and social media users reported intermittent outages spanning several hours.

Posts on a competitor's forum, reviewed by TechCrunch, lauded the intrusion, with one individual asserting that the culprit behind the breach had infiltrated 4chan's infrastructure "for more than a year."

A number of screenshots purportedly displaying 4chan's backend circulated online, revealing the site's alleged backend, source code, and user banning templates, which would exclusively be accessible to the site's moderators. The leaked data also contained a list of alleged 4chan moderators and 'janitors,' the latter being users authorized to delete posts and threads but possessing fewer privileges than moderators, who, for instance, can also view user IP addresses.

Because 4chan is known for its links to political violence, this cyberattack could possibly show who runs these forums, which are now very important for alt-right movements.

TechCrunch contacted several email addresses that had been disclosed and conversed with one individual associated with one of the addresses. One 4chan moderator, who spoke to TechCrunch under the condition of anonymity, expressed certainty that the disclosed data and accompanying screenshots are entirely authentic.

"I have no compelling grounds to suppose otherwise," the janitor asserted.

I'm quite surprised. 4chan's moderation team has had leaks before, but this is clearly a bigger problem," the administrator told TechCrunch. "I'm not happy about this. I'm sure most other people aren't either. But many of us have been doing this for a long time. Doxing is a common activity on 4chan, and the possibility that we could be revealed has always been there.

I'm most worried about the leaked information, which is understandable," the janitor said. "I think that the fact that a hacker or hackers took control of 4chan is probably worse than just screenshots, at least for the site to keep working.

Also, the janitor mentioned that it looks like the hacker got the personal information of 4chan Pass subscribers. These are users who pay the site to avoid post limits and get to a special board.

4chan did not furnish a response to an email soliciting commentary, which was dispatched to the platform's designated press email contact.

4chan is an online forum where people seem to be anonymous, and it's often seen as a negative part of the internet. It's mostly an image board used by people who seem bored and try to shock others, often by sharing very offensive things. Sometimes, things from 4chan spread into the real world as simple memes or as hateful ideas that have influenced right-wing violence.

Memes like Pepe the Frog, rage comics, and wojaks first became popular on 4chan and are now seen everywhere online. But 4chan's biggest impact comes from its political sections, where alt-right ideas can make young people believe in white supremacist views. QAnon, a group of far-right conspiracy theorists who support President Donald Trump, also started on 4chan.

The individual responsible for the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, which resulted in the deaths of 51 people in New Zealand, had habitually used the online forum 4chan since adolescence. Similarly, in 2022, an eighteen-year-old man fatally shot ten Black individuals at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; his extensive 180-page manifesto incorporated language and ideas previously articulated online by the Christchurch perpetrator.