When anyone tries to enter the popular portal MyAnimeListwhich collects information on currently airing anime and manga series, as well as reviews from hundreds of thousands of users, comes across a “error 403“. This means that the user does not have any problem with his internet, but rather the server where he is hosted MyAnimeList rejects the access request.
But why is this happening? Well, fortunately, a variety of users on social networks were able to realize that the site had been hacked in the hours before it fell. Let’s review, for example, the one shared by the user “@tetrix_anime“:
We can realize that the titles of absolutely all the series were changed to “LET’S ALL LOVE LAIN” (WE ALL LOVE LAIN), being a direct reference to Lain Iwakurathe protagonist of the popular cult series, Serial Experiments Line. In fact, this same series deals with the subject of the Internet and other problems derived from the fact that “now we are all connected.”
In short, it is a rather particular situation, considering that the franchise will not celebrate anything these days or that the culture of the West does not have any “Day of Jokes” around these dates. Some admin probably did this as a joke, but considering the site is still down as of this writing, you have to consider the possibility of an external hack.
Anyway, let’s review the comments from fans on social networks:
- «I Opened MyAnimeList For The First Time In A Long Time, And Now It Is Hacked».
- «Looks like MyAnimeList got hacked again (it’s been a while since that happened though), all anime are now called LET’S ALL LOVE LAIN».
- «MyAnimeList has been taken down. It was probably the result of an injection attack, or perhaps a rogue administrator. I recommend that everyone change their passwords once the site is restored, and remove their credit card information if they were paying users.».
- «It seems that the site was hacked by a fan of Serial Experiments Lain, he knew that this series had a hidden meaning.».
- «Let’s hope the site is properly restored, these types of vulnerabilities really shouldn’t occur on commercial sites of their magnitude, especially considering how many relationships they have with companies. In the meantime, this hack reminded me that I have Serial Experiments Lain on my to-do list, so I’ll take a look at it.».
- «MyAnimeList has been hacked and it couldn’t be more fun. Unfortunately I haven’t seen Serial Experiments Lain, so I don’t know if there will be any reference».
- «MyAnimeList has been hacked by some random and it’s honestly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It seems safe to say that he is a huge fan of Serial Experiments Lain, as everyone should be.».
- «Yes, web development is a technical mess. A slightly less technical explanation would be: On less secure websites, users can use page text fields (such as a search bar or comment box) to insert and execute code, without permission or knowledge of administrators.».
