Archive of Our Own could remain offline for up to four weeks after its nonprofit operator detected a security incident on the fanfiction website.
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) said on October 30 that AO3 would remain unavailable while it investigated the incident and determined its scope. The archive first went offline for maintenance on October 29, with the organization initially warning that the work could take at least 12 hours.
AO3 is a nonprofit platform where users publish and read fanfiction, fan art, and other transformative works. OTW said the outage was not caused by data deletion, confirming that works, bookmarks, kudos, and other site content remain safe.
User database access cannot be ruled out
According to OTW’s official update, the organization does not currently believe that AO3’s user database was stolen. However, it said it cannot rule out the possibility while the investigation continues.
The database may contain usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and hashed versions of users’ passwords. OTW said it does not collect users’ real names, while donor information is stored separately and is not linked to AO3.
The organization advised users to change their passwords on other websites if they reused the same credentials on AO3. It also noted that hashed passwords are stored in a scrambled form, though weak or reused passwords could still be vulnerable to cracking.
AO3 may return in a limited state
OTW’s status page currently estimates that AO3 will be down for a minimum of two weeks and potentially as long as four weeks.
The archive could return sooner in a degraded state, meaning some features may be unavailable or the website may operate in read-only mode. OTW warned that even a limited reopening could be followed by additional unexpected downtime as recovery work continues.
The organization said it will provide further updates through its official channels but may be unable to respond to individual user inquiries while the investigation is ongoing.
I’m Abhishek Sharma, an author at TigerJek.com. I enjoy exploring games, testing different strategies, and turning what I learn into clear, useful guides. My goal is to help players understand the game better and improve without the usual confusion.
