KissAnime, a video streaming site for people who still haven’t figured out how to use Nyaa, experienced issues Saturday when users suddenly found themselves unable to access the website. Instead, users were redirected to one of several different websites where anime could be watched officially from a licensed source.
“I was looking forward to a nice evening of streaming all the anime I want from one convenient place when I was suddenly redirected to half a dozen sites instead, with every series seemly split arbitrarily between each them,” stated regular KissAnime viewer Derek Rollins.
“I noticed that some shows were on several of the sites, but some of them had one season in one place and then the second season on an entirely different site. Most of them were asking me to subscribe too. I don’t want to get two subscriptions just to be able to finish something I might like.”
According to analysts, the redirection was caused by a DNS hijack earlier in the day. Hackers were able to gain access to KissAnime’s Cloudflare account and change redirect settings for incoming visitors. For several hours, all users attempting to access the site were instead redirected randomly to a legitimate streaming site such as Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix, among others.
“What the hell is this?! Why is everyone speaking English?,” anime fan Christopher Stottman exclaimed as he was suddenly redirected to the Funimation website. “What am I supposed to watch now? I mean, I guess I could still watch Ghost Stories. Wait, where is it? Why isn’t it listed on here?”
Service was restored later in the day, returning the website to it’s normal state of buggy popups and dubious video links. However, without an official outlet of communication, users were uncertain as to when service would be restored with many moving on to WatchAnimeCartoonFreeTube.ru instead.
Internet security experts claim that users visiting the site are at risk of malware from the website’s malicious ads, though at the time they were not aware of the hack. Meanwhile, KissAnime site moderators have advised users to clear their web browser cache and run an anti-virus program if they visited the site anytime before or after the breach.