4chan Breached? Hacker from Rival Soyjak Forum Claims Source Code Leak – Source:hackread.com

4chan is down amid claims from a rival Soyjak forum user who says they’ve breached the site and leaked its source code. Investigation is ongoing.

The infamous imageboard 4chan is facing a major security incident. Users and researchers have flagged a possible breach resulting in the leak of 4chan’s custom source code, widely known as Yotsuba. What makes the incident ironic is the claim that the attacker is affiliated with Soyjak.st, a lesser-known but competing imageboard community.

Unusual Downtime

As of this writing, 4chan was offline or loading inconsistently, with broken images and non-functional links across multiple boards. The outage began in the early hours of April 15th, and speculation quickly spread across social media and rival platforms.

Some users initially blamed server issues or a possible DDoS attack. However, what followed was far more serious: a user on Soyjak.st claimed responsibility for accessing admin credentials and leaking 4chan’s internal codebase.

Shortly after the claim surfaced, links to what appear to be portions of the Yotsuba source code began circulating across multiple platforms, including Telegram, GitHub Gists and private paste sites.

While the full extent of the leak is still being verified, early samples appear to be consistent with 4chan’s long-running backend structure. The leaked files also include core PHP scripts, administrative tools, and configuration files, some containing outdated coding practices that raise security concerns.

Although 4chan does not rely on user accounts or store typical sensitive information like emails or passwords, a codebase leak can still be serious. With access to internal logic, attackers could exploit undocumented behaviour and server-level compromises. It may also provide insights into moderation workflows or board-level permissions that were never intended to be public.

The Soyjak.st Connection

Soyjak.st, though much smaller than 4chan, has managed to grow its own dedicated niche in the imageboard world. With a focus on parody, satire, and meme content, the community has a complicated and often hostile relationship with 4chan.

Whether the claimed attacker is truly affiliated with Soyjak.st or is simply using its name remains to be seen. No formal attribution has been made. Nevertheless, if verified, the breach may be the first major incident where one imageboard’s userbase actively compromises another’s infrastructure.

Update

An independent security researcher using the alias @Brando contacted Hackread.com on X (formerly Twitter) and shared a screenshot of an internal chat from 4chan’s Discord server. The chat logs indicate that 4chan administrators are well aware of and concerned about the scale of the breach.

Additionally, the hacker has leaked a text file that they claim contains the email addresses of 4chan administrators and moderators. Hackread.com reviewed the file and found 219 email addresses, along with associated usernames, designations and IP addresses.

If you are a 4chan user, it’s a good idea to be cautious with any links or files claiming to be from 4chan. There’s always a risk of fakes or phishing attempts popping up after something like this