Infamous imageboard 4chan is partially back online after being taken down by a major hack that left the site inaccessible for nearly two weeks.
The platform first went offline on April 14, following a cyberattack where a hacker reportedly leaked internal data, including a list of site moderators and “janitors.” One janitor confirmed to TechCrunch that the leaked data appeared to be authentic.
The prolonged outage sparked speculation about 4chan’s future, with Wired publishing an obituary claiming the platform had devolved into a hub for far-right extremism. However, 4chan responded defiantly on X (formerly Twitter), rejecting the idea that it was “dead.”
In a detailed blog post, 4chan explained that the breach occurred through a “bogus PDF upload” by a hacker using a UK IP address. This allowed the attacker to access server data, exfiltrate database tables, and obtain much of 4chan’s source code. The team described the resulting damage as “catastrophic,” blaming chronic underfunding and pressure from advertisers and payment providers for their weakened infrastructure.
The breached server has since been replaced, but the platform now faces new limitations. PDF uploads have been disabled temporarily, and the board for Flash animations remains offline due to security concerns. As of Sunday, 4chan’s boards and homepage were operational, although posting, images, and thumbnails were still facing issues.
“4chan is back,” the team declared. “No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.”
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