Bluesky confirms DDoS attack is cause of continued app outages

Bluesky's website and mobile application continue to experience significant difficulties as of Friday, with interruptions attributed to a cyberattack. Rose Wang, the chief operating officer, confirmed that the issues stem from a complex Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which was first detected on April 15 around 8:40 p.m. ET. DDoS attacks typically bombard applications and websites with excessive amounts of traffic, overwhelming their servers and leading to outages. While these attacks do not compromise a company’s internal systems, they can severely affect operations and user experience. Reports of sporadic app outages began to emerge around 11:40 p.m. PDT on April 15, 2026, as Bluesky's team worked tirelessly through the night to address the escalating attack. In a communication via their official account, Bluesky acknowledged the ongoing situation, explaining that users might be facing interruptions in accessing feeds, notifications, threads, and search functionalities. Fortunately, the company has not detected any unauthorized access to user data amidst the turmoil. Initially, Bluesky directed inquiries to their status page for updates, though the page itself has been experiencing issues. As of now, the company has not provided a timeline for resolution. Users are experiencing intermittent access, with the app occasionally loading slowly or displaying error messages. For example, attempts to access certain feeds may result in notifications indicating that the feed is temporarily unavailable due to high traffic. While Bluesky grapples with these service disruptions, other platforms utilizing the same decentralized protocol, such as Blacksky, remain operational. Blacksky's team noted a notable increase in migration requests from Bluesky users as they seek alternative options. The situation has become chaotic for Bluesky, as reflected in a recent post on their status page that contained a typographical error, indicating the urgency and stress surrounding their response efforts. An update on the status and mitigation of the attack is expected by 1 p.m. ET on Friday.