Mastodon has recently experienced a significant distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on its primary server, causing intermittent outages for users. The decentralised social networking platform reported that many users encountered error messages or faced complete unavailability while trying to access the site.
In a status update released early Monday morning, Mastodon acknowledged the situation and confirmed it was actively investigating the ongoing cyberattack. By around 9:05 AM ET, the team announced that measures had been put in place to counter the DDoS attack, restoring access. Nevertheless, they cautioned users that some instability might persist as the attack continued.
This incident comes shortly after a similar attack on Bluesky, another decentralised social network, which had also faced prolonged outages. Bluesky resolved many of its issues but indicated that the DDoS attack was still ongoing as of April 17. Mastodon officials have yet to provide detailed information on the specific cause of the attack when approached for comment.
DDoS attacks, characterised by overwhelming a target’s servers with excessive web traffic, aim to shut down the service rather than steal data. Although disruptive for users, these attacks have been known to vary in intensity. For instance, last year, network security firm Cloudflare reported its mitigation of an unprecedented 29.7 terabits per second DDoS attack, demonstrating the increasing potency of such cyber threats.
While DDoS attacks can lead to disruptions, they often do not incapacitate all users of decentralised platforms. For example, users who had migrated their accounts to alternative providers, such as Blacksky, during the Bluesky attack remained unaffected due to their use of the same underlying protocol. Similarly, the DDoS attack on Mastodon predominantly impacted its largest server, mastodon.social, while numerous smaller instances within the Mastodon network appeared to be functioning normally.
As cyber threats continue to evolve and intensify, the resilience of social networking platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky will be tested in the face of these challenges. The recent attacks underscore the importance of robust security measures and the ongoing need for a proactive approach to cyber defence in the digital realm.
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