OpenAI blames ChatGPT outages on cyberattacks, Anthropic also facing issues
OpenAI has verified that ChatGPT is facing intermittent outages due to a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack. DDoS attacks involve repeatedly flooding an online platform with more requests than it can handle. Users who attempted to access the AI chatbot were seeing a message stating that "ChatGPT is at capacity right now." Initially, the company believed the problem stemmed from the high demand for the platform's latest features, which were showcased at OpenAI's first developer conference on Monday.
Hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan claims responsibility for the attack
A closer examination exposed "an unusual traffic pattern" indicative of a DDoS attack, resulting in the ongoing disruptions of ChatGPT and its API. Per TechCrunch, Anonymous Sudan, a hacktivist group, has claimed responsibility for the purported DDoS attack on ChatGPT. The group targeted OpenAI because of the company's "general biasness toward Israel and against Palestine." OpenAI has not disclosed any further details about the attack.
OpenAI competitor Anthropic also faces issues
On Wednesday, Anthropic, an OpenAI rival, encountered issues with its AI-based chatbot, Claude. CNBC noted that a message on the platform read: "Due to unexpected capacity constraints, Claude is unable to respond to your message." It is uncertain whether the events impacting ChatGPT and Claude are related and if the "capacity constraints" on Claude were because users were trying to find an alternative when ChatGPT was facing an outage.
ChatGPT's popularity and impact
ChatGPT was made available to the public one year ago and has since garnered significant popularity. Roughly 100 million people utilize ChatGPT each week, and over 90% of Fortune 500 companies are developing tools on OpenAI's platform. Recently, the company launched a preview version of GPT-4 Turbo, an enhanced and quicker iteration of its large language model that underlies ChatGPT. ChatGPT rivals other AI chatbots including Google Bard, Microsoft Bing, and Elon Musk's GrokAI.
