Bluesky says a distributed denial-of-service attack caused a disruption that affected the social network for about a day. The company confirmed on Monday that its systems had been flooded with junk traffic during the previous 24 hours.
In an official post, Bluesky said it had upgraded its defenses in response to the attack and was continuing to monitor the situation. The company did not provide further technical details about the incident.
A Bluesky spokesperson did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s questions about the attack.
DDoS Attacks Overwhelm Services With Junk Traffic
DDoS attacks attempt to overwhelm websites or servers by sending them large volumes of unwanted traffic until their resources become unavailable to legitimate users. Attackers often generate that traffic using large numbers of compromised internet-connected devices.
Those devices can be organized into botnets or residential proxy networks, allowing attackers to combine their available internet bandwidth and direct it toward a target. The resulting traffic can slow services significantly or knock them offline.
Security researchers discussing the Bluesky incident in an IFIN public forum report said an Iran-backed group had claimed responsibility for the attack. Bluesky has not publicly attributed the incident to a specific group.
The reported claim comes amid increased cyber activity targeting U.S. companies and critical infrastructure linked to Iran-backed actors since the start of the U.S. and Israel-led war earlier in 2026.
Bluesky Was Hit by Similar Outages in April
The latest disruption follows another large-scale DDoS incident that affected Bluesky in April. That earlier event caused a prolonged series of outages after the service was hit with a similar surge of web traffic.
It remains unclear whether the April attack and the latest incident are connected. Bluesky has not said whether it identified the source of either attack or whether the same infrastructure was involved.
The company’s latest response has focused on strengthening its defenses after the most recent disruption. Bluesky said it would continue monitoring the service following the changes.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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