Alibris took its site offline and is working with cybersecurity experts to assess a threat it discovered on Monday, August 12, 2024. As several readers reported to EcommerceBytes, the Alibris website now displays the following message:
Alibris is temporarily unavailable
To the Alibris community:
On August 12, 2024, we became aware of unusual activity within our computer network. In order to protect all customer and seller data, and to ensure integrity of our operations, we acted promptly to secure our network. This necessitated taking most of our systems, including our websites, email, Seller Hub, and business APIs, offline.
Please be assured that our team is working around the clock with leading independent cybersecurity experts to assist with the investigation and to help get things up and running as soon as we possibly can. We will continue to post updates and estimated timelines here.
Unfortunately, because our email system is offline, we can’t respond to customer and seller service inquiries immediately. We sincerely appreciate your patience as we work through this.
Regards,
The Alibris Team
Alibris had published an “Alibris is temporarily unavailable” message on Monday with no explanation, leaving several buyers sharing their concerns on social media, worried about their recent purchases made on the marketplace.
The site has roots back to the early 1990s in a service exclusively for professional booksellers called Interloc, and Alibris launched in the late 1990s. An excerpt from Alibris’s about page from July 2024 follows:
“Today, Alibris is a vibrant, independent marketplace operating in the worldwide media business: online sales, eBooks, and used/out-of-print books, music, and movies. Alibris helps independent sellers find buyers through marketplace solutions and partnerships with scores of leading global media retailers, including eBay (US), and Hudson’s Bay (Canada).
“Many, many people have made the Alibris journey possible. Alibris thrives thanks to the loyalty of millions of business and retail customers and an incredibly capable and dedicated business, technical, and support staff. Alibris continues to benefit from experienced investors who stood by the company in good times and bad.”
As the current message on Alibris states, its email services are also down. It has a presence on several social media sites where it has not posted any updates.
Update 8/16/2024: Alibris is back online. It tweeted the following message on Friday: “Alibris experienced a major network outage starting on 8/12/24. We’re pleased to report that efforts to restore systems were successful and we’ve taken appropriate actions to prevent further disruptions. We appreciate your patience & regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”
