AO3 fan fiction site down for over a week after cyberattack

One of the world's most popular fan fiction sites has been inaccessible for more than a week following a cyberattack.

AFP reported Saturday that Archive of Our Own (AO3), an online fan fiction platform, has been down since Oct. 29 — nine consecutive days as of Saturday.

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), which operates AO3, attributed the outage to an external cyberattack and said the database storing users' email addresses and passwords may have been stolen. However, OTW said no fan fiction content posted on the platform had been lost.

AO3 launched in 2008 and has more than 11 million registered users and approximately 18 million posted works. The platform won the Hugo Award, one of the world's most prestigious science fiction literary prizes, in 2019.

Meanwhile, the US government recently issued a statement warning of continued cyberattack threats targeting industrial refrigeration and freezer systems. On Monday, hackers also struck supermarkets in Sweden, Belgium and other European countries, forcing the disposal of large quantities of food.