OpenAI Attributes Ongoing ChatGPT Outages to DDoS Attack

Over the past 24 hours, users attempting to access ChatGPT have encountered sporadic outages accompanied by a message indicating that the service is currently at capacity. Even reputable platforms like TechCrunch have faced difficulties logging into the service.

Initially, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attributed the issue to heightened interest in the platform's new features, unveiled during the company's inaugural developer conference on Monday. However, the problem persisted, prompting OpenAI to update its incident report page, acknowledging "periodic outages" across ChatGPT and its API.

In the latest update, OpenAI disclosed that the persistent outages are a consequence of an abnormal traffic pattern consistent with a DDoS attack. Such attacks typically involve overwhelming an online service by inundating it with more requests than it can handle.

Despite fixing the initial issue around 1 p.m. PST on November 8, OpenAI is grappling with the aftermath of this malicious activity, with no additional information provided about the specifics of the attack. TechCrunch's inquiries to OpenAI remain unanswered.

usage of our new features from devday is far outpacing our expectations.

we were planning to go live with GPTs for all subscribers monday but still haven’t been able to. we are hoping to soon.

there will likely be service instability in the short term due to load. sorry :/ — Sam Altman (@sama) November 8, 2023

Hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan has claimed responsibility for the alleged attack in a series of Telegram messages, as reported by TechCrunch. Despite its name, security researchers believe this group is connected to Russia.

Interestingly, OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic, encountered similar problems with its AI-powered Claude chatbot on the same day. A message on the platform informed users of unexpected capacity constraints preventing Claude from responding to messages. The potential connection between these two incidents remains unclear.