Archive of Our Own offline 2–4 weeks after security incident detected

Archive of Our Own (AO3), a major repository for fanfiction and creative writing, went offline on October 29, 2026, after the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) detected a security incident during scheduled maintenance. The site was initially expected to be down for 12 hours, but the organization announced the outage would extend 2–4 weeks as investigators assess the incident's scope.

OTW stated that no AO3 data has been deleted and user works, bookmarks, and kudos remain intact. However, the organization cannot rule out potential exposure of user account information, which may include usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and hashed passwords. OTW has advised users to change passwords on other platforms if they reused credentials from AO3, noting that weak or reused passwords could be vulnerable to cracking despite industry-standard hashing techniques. The organization confirmed that real names are not collected on AO3, and donor information is stored in a separate system not linked to the archive.

AO3 hosts over 18.4 million works across more than 82,900 fandoms and serves approximately 11 million users. The platform's absence has prompted community-wide responses, with some fanfiction communities organizing shared archives and downloading links to maintain access to stories during the extended outage. OTW indicated the site may return in a degraded state with limited functionality before full restoration, though it may require temporary shutdowns during recovery. The nonprofit operates AO3 through volunteer engineering staff rather than paid employees.