This page was initially maintained separately from the site's template and was migrated after Nico's recovery. The final pre-migration page can be seen in this archive snapshot.
  • 2024-08-05 15:00 After 58 days, Niconico has relaunched as version 帰ってきたニコニコ (The Return of Niconico), with designs and services largely identical to how they looked and operated before the site's shutdown in June. The site was crushed under a surge of initial traffic for about thirty minutes that caused assets to not load and the login page to sometimes serve 503 errors. Some users had success logging in immediately and were able to begin posting to the ただいまニコニコ tag, which is currently being featured in a dedicated section on the homepage. Comments, tags, and other video metadata initially failed to load as well until traffic errors cleared up. Niconama was also initially still geoblocked overseas, but began resolving about an hour later. The /watch_tmp video URLs from Re:Kari continue to redirect to the Niconico Info blog from overseas.

    A dedicated page (accompanying a PV celeberating Nico through the years) was also launched with a letter directly from Sige thanking fans for their support through the last few months, praising both the criticism and support they received. A milestone tracker at the bottom shows Nico is still in a recovery stage as they gradually begin to resume services, about halfway on the road to a full comeback: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
  • 2024-08-05 00:00 With 15 hours to go, Niconico Info has posted what is likely their final countdown notice to services relaunching. Sige has also adopted the joke that this is the moment when Re:Kari will "explode": 1, 2
  • 2024-08-04 13:06 "Everyone will be happier with videos filled with one-liners like '草' instead of long-winded replies": 1
  • 2024-08-04 10:02 A post outlining the recovery receives over 7k reposts: 1
  • 2024-08-04 09:00 The /watch_tmp video URLs used for Re:Kari will redirect to the standard /watch video URLs for a limited period after the site relaunches: 1
  • 2024-08-03 12:27 Details about Vokaeri have been delayed due to planning associated with Nico's relaunch. Further details will be announced by Niconico Info on the 5th: 1, 2
  • 2024-08-02 21:32 Sige affirms that Twitcasting has likely violated a Nico patent after consulting with legal internally, even as Twitcasting has updated their feature description claiming that they have investigated existing patents: 1
  • 2024-08-02 12:17 Sige posts that although Twitcasting appears to have implemented a comment function that likely violates Nico's patents, Dwango does not intend to pursue legal action at least until Nico relaunches. Twitcasting did not make any contact with Dwango before implementing their feature. Dwango has somewhat infamously purused litigation against FC2 for implementing a similar comment function, which ultimately validated their patents with some modifications and determined that servers overseas operated by a Japanese company can still be subject to Japanese patent violations. Sige has also warned in the past that third-party extensions implementing a similar function on other sites are also subject to removal: 1, 2, 3
  • 2024-08-02 21:56 Sige apologizes for a lack of communication around Vocacolle and the details for Vokaeri, promising more details when the site relaunches: 1
  • 2024-08-02 19:08 Niconico Info has released an upload notice sheet that creators can use to promote upcoming uploads, asking users to post them using the hashtag #ニコニコ投稿予告 so they can be promoted in a post on the 6th: 1
  • 2024-08-02 10:05 Compensation for June for the creator support program is now going out ahead of schedule. Compensation for July will follow in early September, and compensation for August will follow at the beginning of October based on past performance before the service failure: 1
  • 2024-08-02 A premiere has been scheduled on Nico's official YouTube channel for the relaunch on the 5th: 1
  • 2024-08-02 Additional details have now been provided about Nicopedia's relaunch which were absent in the initial announcement on the 1st. There is currently a known defect affecting article names that contain half-width spaces. Although communities will not relaunch, community articles already created will still be available to view directly, but will not be indexed by external search providers. These articles will continue to show up within Nicopedia search results: 1
  • 2024-08-01 16:00 New videos uploaded with the tag ただいまニコニコ (welcome back, Niconico) will receive priority ranking on the general and video homepages after the site relaunches: 1
  • 2024-08-01 15:00 In a separate post with a table broken down by month, various events are announced to return when Niconico Douga relaunches, including character birthdays and submission festivals like the VOICEVOX 3rd Anniversary Culture Festival (initially scheduled), the 10 Second Video Festival (newly announced), and the Zunpara Submission Festival Z (newly announced). A one-off Vocacolle style summer event, ぼかえり2024夏 ～1回限りのボカロ夏祭り～ (Vokaeri), was also announced, which will also begin when the site relaunches on the 5th. Details provided so far are sparse, but the initial announcement mentions Sige might be involved in curating or presenting submissions in some way. Further details will be announced from the @the_voca_colle account on X, with additional details for other events from @nico_usersevent on X: 1
  • 2024-08-01 15:00 Historical video ranking data will no longer be provided on archive pages. This reflects changes made to the ranking system back in 2019, when previously rankings were calculated weighing views, comments, mylist registrations, and ads for broad categories. This ranking data will still be accessible through RSS for the indefinite future, though the aggregate files with ranking data will no longer be available at a later announced date: 1, 2, 3
  • 2024-08-01 15:00 As part of the service relaunch, Nico account passwords will be reset and users will be prompted to set a new password when logging in for the first time. Passwords now have a minimum length requirement of 12 characters, up from 6. This notice also recommends setting up two-factor authentication, though there's no indication this will be required. As mentioned in the initial general announcement, accounts registered after June 7th at 11:26 and guest accounts will not come forward with the service relaunch: 1, 2
  • 2024-08-01 15:00 As promised, individual details about the relaunch of each service have been outlined. Services officially will relaunch on August 5th at 15:00 JST. Broadly, only accessing them from a PC browser will be available initially on the 5th, excluding services like Niconico Manga that relaunched first through mobile browser sites. Niconama will only be available from a PC browser and Vocacolle won't be available until mid-August. Premium subscriptions will resume gradually in mid-August depending on associated payment type.
    Niconico Douga:
    • Comments made after June 7th 06:18 won't be restored
    • Videos posted from new accounts after June 7th 11:26 won't be restored (accounts made around the service failure will also not come forward)
    • Videos posted from older accounts after June 8th 02:46 won't be restored
    • Video recommendations won't be very accurate to start with
    • Account watch history has been expanded to 180 days, up from 90 days, to account for the service failure
    • Some public and scheduled videos uploaded around the service failure may be flipped to private
    • Community videos have been made private and can't be made public again
    • A new function to follow uploaders, replacing Nicorepo, will be released in late August
    • The initial plan to release a new video viewing page in September will now release with the new site, though without the ability to revert to the old viewing page as previously announced. Screenshots can be seen in an additional post with a list of functions that will be added in future updates, including lots of previous functionality like reordering comments, looping playback, and Nicoscript
    Niconama:
    • Along with official broadcasts, user broadcasts will now also relaunch on the 5th with limited functionality
    • Channel broadcasts will relaunch on August 22nd
    • Niconama Cruise, Niconi gifts and advertisements, the Emotion react function, and other small services and functions are expected to resume at a later date
    • As previously announced, restoring timeshift broadcasts is still in progress
    Niconi Commons:
    • Most functions will resume on the 5th, excluding rankings and showing relationships on video pages, which are expected to be added in a later update
    Vocacolle:
    • Most functions will resume when the app is restored in mid-August, excluding a few small things like recommendations
    Nico Channel:
    • Now scheduled to fully restart August 22nd at 13:00
    Nico Communities:
    • As previously announced, communities will not be restored or rebuilt
    • Also mentioned in the service announcement for Niconico Douga, all community videos will be privated and cannot be set public again
    • Management is currently investigating the possibility of preserving or archiving community information publicly in some manner, if it can be restored, as they note the historical signifigance of this data
    More details are also available for the creator support program, the creator encouragement program, and Niconi advertising, gifts, and tickets: 1
  • 2024-08-01 14:38 One post likens the two month hiatus to a summer vacation, where some creators have stockpiled multiple videos and others have created nothing at all: 1
  • 2024-08-01 12:40 Re:Kari has been updated with videos uploaded in 2019, also confirmed to be the last update batch: 1
  • 2024-07-29 15:00 Kadokawa has released another report outlining their recovery, primarily relating to their publishing business. As previously mentioned, the suspension of Kadokawa's cloud impacted their Direct Order Tablet (DOT) system, which affected the distribution and manufacturing of existing publications and led to shipments dropping to one third of their normal levels. New publications sustained normal levels throughout June and July. Shipment volumes are expected to recover in mid-August, and DOT is expected to restart in September. Compensation will also be provided for pending shipments and for titles that have been in short supply at stores throughout DOT's suspension. Merchandise businesses are also expected to resume in August, with some online shops opting to be listed on other storefronts: 1
  • 2024-07-29 13:30 Niconico Manga has released further details about their recovery timeline. New series updates and access from the PC site version of the service will resume in early August. Logging in from a logged out state and using coins as a guest will be possible again in mid-August: 1
  • 2024-07-28 19:42 Rather than any concerns about service stability, as services are being rebuilt entirely as public cloud systems, the bottleneck for restoring app access across different Nico services appears to be approvals by Google and Apple. Sige also encouraged people to mass upload when services return: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-27 11:27 Sige indicates that details about the restoration and recovery of individual services will be provided on August 1st: 1
  • 2024-07-26 21:10 "Without creators, there is no Niconico": 1
  • 2024-07-26 20:00 In addition to only supporting official broadcasts, Niconama will only launch with PC browser access initially. iOS and Android app support will return as late as mid-August, with user broadcasts resuming in early August. Emergency maintenance may be necessary after the service relaunches: 1
  • 2024-07-26 19:48 Sige indicates that details about the restoration and recovery of individual services will be provided on August 1st: 1
  • 2024-07-26 19:30 Nico has released a new post officially confirming services will relaunch on August 5th. The following services are slated to relaunch on that date:
    • Niconico Douga (posting and watching videos, posting comments)
    • Niconama (official broadcasts)
    • Nicopedia (posting and editing articles, article BBSes)
    • Niconico Seiga
    • Niconi Commons
    • Niconi 3D
    • Niconico Q
    The following services are expected to relaunch later in August:
    • Niconama user broadcasts (early August)
    • Vocacolle (mid-August)
    • Niconi ads, gifts (mid-August)
    • Niconews (previously soft launched, but will return with comments in mid-August)
    • Nico Channel (previously soft launched, but will return with Nico account logins in mid-August)
    Additional details were also provided about the relaunch and other services:
    • These services will relaunch under a new site version name, also to be announced on August 5th
    • Unplanned maintenance may be necessary at times after the site relaunches
    • Nicorepo will be replaced with a new user following system launching later in August
    • Nico Communities will not be relaunched due to loss of data
    • A compensation table was outlined for various premium services, with compensation now extending through the month of August. Most premium members will be refunded automatically. Certain payment methods like WebMoney and Apple Pay will be contacted about refunds at a later date
    Specific details about compensation and refunds for different payment methods for premium memberships, channel memberships, Nico Channel, and the creator support program have also been outlined in a separate post: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-26 19:15 Denfaminicogamer reports Nico services are expected to relaunch on August 5th: 1
  • 2024-07-25 14:04 The Niconico chronology for 2016 is posted, making note of the huge uproar over the release of site version く (Ku) at the time, which came only with marginal improvements that users criticized as not addressing the site's main pain points. Sige boasts that management never tries to cover up dissatisfaction, with this chronology also having been exhibited previously at Chokaigi: 1, 2, 3
  • 2024-07-25 12:43 Sige indicates they plan to announce details about the relaunch tomorrow: 1
  • 2024-07-24 16:00 Niconi Commons has restored search results and dedicated URLs for listed materials: 1
  • 2024-07-24 13:00 Niconico Manga gift and stamp purchases have resumed: 1
  • 2024-07-19 14:08 Sige indicates that uncertainties with recovery have prevented them from being able to provide more details on the recovery timeline this week: 1
  • 2024-07-18 13:16 Sige indicates reporters are apparently visiting the homes of engineers that had their residences leaked in the batches of released data fishing for statements. Dwango was able to independently confirm this using intercom footage provided by one of their employees. As journalists and broadcasters are exempt from typical PII protection rules in Japan, Sige warns they may publicly reveal the publications involved if they continue to harass employees: 1, 2, 3
  • 2024-07-16 ~13:00 Niconico Manga has restored purchased coins for users currently logged in to the app. Free coins that were set to expire or expired during the downtime have had their expiration extended to 2024-12-31. This restores core functionality to the service, with the main pain point being that logging in and out is still unavailable: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-16 11:30 Vocacolle has also broken from the pattern of cycling back through songs published by years and is now featuring popular songs more broadly, billed as 人気ボカロP特集: 1
  • 2024-07-15 00:00 Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) has now switched over to featuring videos exclusively from the 人類には早すぎる動画 tag after the 2015 batch of videos, breaking the pattern of video batches being themed around years: 1
  • 2024-07-13 ~13:00 A more comprehensive breakdown of payouts to members of the creators program was posted. Balances earned before 2024-06-08 can be withdrawn freely and all balances set to expire in June are currently postponed indefinitely. Balances earned in April and May, which normally take two months to clear into a user's account, have been processed according to schedule. Only cash receipts from creators that have utilized that method in the past are available as a form of payout and eligible users will be contacted by email. Balances less than 1000 JPY cannot be withdrawn. Creators that prefer another form of payout will need to apply after the program overall resumes: 1
  • 2024-07-12 19:00 Niconico Plaza (Re:Kari) went down at 19:00 and prevented users from joining rooms, eventually being restored at 20:30: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-12 18:55 The two tags that were virtually tied in the user poll, 人類には早すぎる動画 and 才能の無駄遣い, will both be featured on Re:Kari. The schedule of video batches now extends to at least 2024-07-25 with 2017 videos: 1
  • 2024-07-12 17:01 Sige indicates they are hoping to provide a broader timeline of recovery efforts by the end of next week: 1
  • 2024-07-12 17:00 Nico indicates they are now on the third stage of their recovery efforts (rebuilding services) after setting up new infrastructure and restoring data. While we previously knew video data was safe, we now know comment data was successfully restored as well. Member points and purchase history, Seiga illustrations, Niconi Solid 3D models, and user advertisements were also successfully restored. Niconama timeshifts are still under investigation. While most services will be restored from a backup immediately or close to before services began to fail, Seiga will be rolled back to a backup from 2023-05-23 ~10:30. Services are being rebuilt entirely in the public cloud rather than on Kadokawa's private cloud as before, which was already a planned migration before the attack: 1
  • 2024-07-12 17:00 Niconico Plaza (Re:Kari), a real-time chat application that allows users to gather in rooms themed on specific tags, has launched available on iOS, Android, and the web. Rooms will be visible to enter on Re:Kari video pages, with names being randomly assigned to users: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-12 ~16:00 Dwango indicates that they have verified the malicious spread of information in 420 cases relating to Dwango and 53 cases relating to Dwango Educational Institute, with an even more stern notice that they plan to prosecute the individuals and sites responsible. A source breakdown is provided for each category of cases, with 5channel, X, and matome sites being the most common in descending order: 1
  • 2024-07-12 14:00 Paid broadcasts for Niconama (Re:Kari) have now launched utilizing architecture from Sheeta, Nico's fan club system. This marks the fist return of paid video content, such as concerts: 1
  • 2024-07-11 18:12 As users are still unable to edit Nicopedia articles, Niconico News has established a team that will be creating rough drafts of new articles: 1
  • 2024-07-11 15:15 Niconico News has been restored, allowing viewing and searching for articles. Comments are still unavailable. Some articles from mid-June to early July are now inaccessible with this restoration: 1
  • 2024-07-11 15:12 The Re:Kari tag poll appears to be showing different results when viewed from mobile and the web: 1
  • 2024-07-11 12:34 One security engineer indicates he was scouted directly to come work on Nico's restoration efforts at a contract rate of 3M JPY per month, but turned down the offer as he was offered sparse detail on the issue at hand initially. This provides a harsher contrast to the previous job listings for low-ball salaries that were reported about on the 3rd: 1
  • 2024-07-10 Dwango indicates that a cross-sectional team inside of Kadokawa is closely monitoring anonymous message boards and social media to collect evidence against anyone involved in disseminating personal information believed to have be sourced from the leaks: 1
  • 2024-07-10 17:08 Tags on Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) video pages now link to their corresponding Nicopedia article (if it exists), bringing another function to parity with the old site: 1
  • 2024-07-10 14:28 "I feel terrible when I type '音MAD' into YouTube": 1
  • 2024-07-10 10:54 Niconico Info confirms they have successfully requested removals from many of the sites spreading leaked data. They are also cooperating with the police to report incidents like spam. There is another reiteration here that they plan to seek criminal legal action against any of the parties involved: 1
  • 2024-07-09 20:34 Niconico Info is running an informal poll asking users to select from 4 tags among the 400+ submitted by users to be featured on Re:Kari. The four options are 人類には早すぎる動画 (videos too early for humanity), ニコニコ技術部 (Niconico Engineering Department), もっと評価されるべき (should be appreciated more), and 才能の無駄遣い (waste of talent): 1
  • 2024-07-09 14:39 Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) can now be used from the iOS app after an update. A widget was also added that shows videos timestamped by year: 1
  • 2024-07-09 Niconi Commons (Re:Kari) is now offering 30,000 of the most popular items for download again: 1
  • 2024-07-09 Nicopedia has now been restored in a read-only state from a snapshot of data up to around 2024-06-07 08:00 JST. Interactive functions like the message boards and rating articles continue to be unavailable. Management cautions that accessing pages may be slow and that you might also encounter other errors: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-08 12:00 Niconama streamers that have taken refuge on other services like YouTube, Twitch, and Twitcasting are now being promoted by Nico. An alphabetical listing is available in a Niconews article: 1
  • 2024-07-07 A new site has sprung up as another Nico refuge, specifically catering to fringe content like Inmu and Cookie MADs: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-05 15:56 Scammers have reportedly been impersonating lawyers asking individuals for money to have their leaked information scrubbed online: 1
  • 2024-07-05 Dwango has released a more thorough statement on the recent leak, indicating they are proactively doing what they can to protect creators, business partners, and students' privacy: 1
  • 2024-07-05 00:00 Niconico Info has confirmed the veracity of the latest BlackSuit leak and that personal information for individuals both inside and outside of Kadokawa is being spread online. A dedicated help desk was established for people to contact if they believe their information may have been compromised, with a promise that lawyers will help take legal action against any of the parties involved: 1
  • 2024-07-03 Kadokawa has been spotted posting job openings for security engineers, starting at 5.92M JPY (roughly 36k USD today) from the low end of the salary range with a maximum possible salary of 8M JPY (roughly 50k USD today) that scales based on experience. This is of course a reflection of Japan's low cost of living, but also the impressively low wages for IT workers in the country: 1
  • 2024-07-03 19:17 Nico clarifies that they still intend to compensate users billed for premium memership over June and July. Due to differences in payment processors, they are sometimes unable to stop or refund scheduled payments (as is the case with PayPal, which I can confirm billed me today for July membership). Even if a charge has been made, they plan to explore refunds or offsetting the cost of membership: 1
  • 2024-07-03 18:00 Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) is now available on the Android app: 1
  • 2024-07-03 ~16:00 BlackSuit has removed the Kadokawa statement from their page listing their attacks. The link to the /dwango open directory also no longer appears to resolve. It seems likely that Kadokawa called their bluff and has now paid out the rest of ransom fearing that they were sitting on even more damaging data, if the 50% "progress" was to be believed.
  • 2024-07-03 Dwango has posted another accounting of the data that was leaked, including personal information for N High School attendees, employee personal information, internal documents, and contracts. Personal notifications were sent as possible to individuals they believe to have been impacted. Dwango has also established a help desk for people to contact and verify if their data has been leaked: 1
  • 2024-07-02 13:56 Amau Syrup, a Vtuber, believes her name, address, and phone number were included in the leak: 1
  • 2024-07-02 09:28 One post mulls that this event may be such a threat to creator safety and privacy that it could lead to a loss of the otaku content culture that Nico has famously championed, receiving 1.5k reposts over the last hour: 1
  • 2024-07-02 One of the sticking points so far has been that N High School enrollment information appears to be present in the released data. This was a possibility that was previously refuted by Takeshi Natsuno, as he claimed that N High School's data was stored on servers independent of Kadokawa's cloud: 1
  • 2024-07-02 Users have begun calling this leak the ニコニコ超開示 (Niconico Chokaiji) as a cheeky nod to ニコニコ超会議 (Niconico Chokaigi), the annual event put on by Nico: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-02 BlackSuit's progress bar continues to sit at 50% for the Kadokawa statement as people speculate that another batch of more compromising data hasn't been uploaded yet. The character of the currently released data suggests it was obtained through a compromised Windows workstation. Uncompressing all data indicates only about 800 GB has been released, which would align with the overall claim of 1.5 TB: 1, 2
  • 2024-07-02 Various streamer identities and past personalities appear to have been exposed, with some closing accounts on social media in response. One document shows that streamers invited as part of a group were paid significantly different rates, as some of the streamers have now started to actively compare salaries.
  • 2024-07-02 10:20 Kadokawa has released another statement without much new substance, again reiterating that they have established an internal task force and that the authenticty of BlackSuit's claims are still being investigated. They reiterate again that downloading the leaked data comes with risks, that people should refrain from sharing any discovered personal information, and that they expect to provide an update on the external investigation by the end of the month: 1
  • 2024-07-02 A few posters have begun doing deep dives on the released data. It does look likely that certain classes of individuals beyond employees, like N High School attendees and Niconama streamers invited to events, may have had their personal data compromised. Any sweeping claims made about what data is or isn't included, like the following thread suggesting Nico user information isn't included, are probably premature at this point: 1</a>
  • 2024-07-01 BlackSuit has updated their initial statement linking out to an open directory named /dwango. It looks like this directory is being actively uploaded to, so it's difficult to judge what's included, but at the moment it does appear to be mostly Dwango-specific internal data relating to Nico, N High School, etc.
  • 2024-07-01 15:57 The expansion of Niconama (Re:Kari) planned for today has been postponed: 1
  • 2024-06-28 20:34 Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) is now serving videos from 2012, with an Inmu video being included for the first time. Some of the swirling speculation immediately after the attack, mostly unserious, was that the attacker chose Nico as a target due to the spread of Inmu videos in China: 1
  • 2024-06-28 20:34 Dwango will be sending individual notices to NRC users that they believe to have been impacted by the data leak: 1
  • 2024-06-28 19:09 Niconico Info clarifies that account passwords are hashed (and likely salted) and they do not expect any risk if this data were to be compromised. If you use the same password across different services, they still recommend changing it out of an abundance of caution: 1
  • 2024-06-28 18:00 Kadokawa has now confirmed that information has been leaked following the BlackSuit sample release, specifically mentioning Dwango internal documents, employee information, contracts, and receipts. Personal information for creators that utilized NRC, Dwango's music monetization service, was also specified. It should be reiterated again that BlackSuit is claiming more data beyond this scope: 1
  • 2024-06-28 14:00 Niconico Channel Plus was restored today as previously announced: 1
  • 2024-06-27 I've verified that BlackSuit appears to have taken credit for the attack and posted sample data that aligns with their claims. This sample looks like it contains mostly internal documents and not necessarily any personal account data. Their full message can be viewed here reposted to the clear web: 1
  • 2024-06-27 19:42 A new report indicates that the attackers are BlackSuit, a cybercrime group of Russian origin with many high-profile attacks to their name. The group has reportedly posted about their attack to the dark web by claiming approximately 1.5 TB data was stolen, also matching what was specified in the NewsPicks article. This also corroborates the threat that data will be leaked on July 1st unless the ransom is paid in full: 1, 2, 3
  • 2024-06-27 15:30 In addition to Kadokawa's release, Dwango's parallel statement indicates that Niconama (Re:Kari) is planning to expand with more channels on July 1st; further details will be announced in a press release on that date. Compensation details for different creator and member programs is also being worked on, with a suggestion that creators may receive adjusted earnings scaled to past performance. Channel members are still expected to be compensated for memberships in June and July: 1
  • 2024-06-27 15:30 Kadokawa has released a new statement outlining their current path to recovery: 1
    • The top priority remains restoring accounting and logistics functions, which they are projecting to restore in early July. Publishing has been affected by these being down, which has impacted retailers from being able to stock Kadokawa titles during the past month. While new publications are mostly shipping as normal, restocks are at about a third of their normal level. Reprints are being prioritized in manufacturing.
    • There is a further reiteration that they are investigating the possibility that personal data may have been leaked, but that credit card data is unlikely to be impacted. They expect to provide a further update by the end of July.
    • The overall business impact from this attack, in terms of earnings, is still unknown.
  • 2024-06-27 11:35 Niconico Manga has now also restored smartphone app access with some limited functionality, including viewing purchases, viewing and posting comments, and bookmarks. It's not possible to login, but anyone currently logged in can resume their previous session: 1
  • 2024-06-26 23:39 Sige was reappointed as Dwango's COO at a general Dwango shareholders meeting: 1
  • 2024-06-26 19:00 Utacolle 2024 Summer, originally scheduled for September 13th to 16th, has also been postponed in the wake of Vocacolle. Sige clarifies that this is not necessarily confirming that Nico doesn't expect to be operational at these dates, but instead that Utacolle is envisioned as a support event to Vocacolle: 1
  • 2024-06-26 18:30 Vocacolle 2024 Summer, originally scheduled for August 2nd to 5th, has been postponed. This is the furthest push we've seen from the initial month timeline for service restoration: 1
  • 2024-06-26 00:00 Vocacolle began broadcasting a 24 hour stream of a Gumi figure to YouTube: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-25 20:00 Niconico Info #33 was broadcast as scheduled on YouTube: 1
  • 2024-06-25 18:19 The various Niconico (Re:Kari) logos have been made available on Niconi Commons: 1
  • 2024-06-25 18:12 Sige reaffirms that users should not need to take any action with any third party services linked to their Nico account: 1
  • 2024-06-25 17:50 Niconico Talk posts a statement affirming that the spam posted from Takeshi Natsuno's X account was not due to a compromised password, but likely from an app linked to the account. This account was not linked to any Kadokawa service or account. This also confirms that Niconico begun to revoke tokens used for their services when the attack was initially discovered on June 8th: 1
  • 2024-06-25 15:51 Eight Niconama games are now available to play from a dedicated portal: 1
  • 2024-06-25 13:00 Niconico Channel has posted an official statement confirming that they've audited Niconico Channel Plus, the service that enables creators to create channels and manage memberships, and plan to restore it on June 28th. As member logins and registration rely on the use of Nico accounts, they plan to make it possible to register a secondary account with an email address in the interim. Information on restoring access to existing accounts will come at a later date: 1
  • 2024-06-25 11:23 Niconico Manga's smartphone portal was restored, accessible at a new URL (sp.manga.nicovideo.jp). While this returns access to free chapters that are available to guests, account services are broadly still not available: 1
  • 2024-06-24 13:40 Kawango appears to insinuate that the NewsPicks report led to an escalation with the attackers on Kadokawa, resulting in Takeshi Natsuno's X account being hacked. Kawango also suggests that while Kadokawa may deserve to shoulder some blame for having been vulnerable to an attack in the first place, the NewsPicks report compromises their recovery efforts. A community note has been placed on the initial post noting there is no credible connection between these events: 1
  • 2024-06-24 Takeshi Natsuno's X account has begun posting spam that suggests his account has been compromised, which leads to speculation that his account may have been hijacked due it to being linked with a Nico integration.
  • 2024-06-23 Some Nico users begin to report that they have been receiving spam calls from anonymous numbers after the attack. While Kadokawa has so far downplayed the possibility that personal information may have been leaked, the NewsPicks report suggests that the attackers have access to account information and have provided an unencrypted sample in their ransom demands: 1
  • 2024-06-23 08:00 NewsPicks has posted a YouTube video digest of their paywalled article, which includes screenshots of emails sent to Sige with specific ransom demands and claims of stolen data. The emails appear to originate from killmilk2023@tutanota.com and are written in English. The attacker claims extensive knowledge of Kadokawa's internal networks, noting that they maintained access for three days even as administrators attempted to shut off their access as encryption was occurring. They claim a wide range of data was stolen, including internal training documents, legal contracts, presentations, and finances, but also personal data like browsing history that they characterize as "very personal information regarding Japanese citizens". A previous reply in the chain suggests that a 2.98 million USD ransom was initially paid by Kadokawa in BTC around June 13th, supposedly a threshold Kadokawa is unable to cross due to their public governance and ongoing bribe scandal, but a new representative for the attackers stepped in demanding a further 8.25 million USD be paid. They threaten that they may go public with the data if a deal is not struck by the end of the month: 1
  • 2024-06-22 Kawango and Takeshi Natsuno have both posted comments to the NewsPicks article expressing their disapproval: 1
  • 2024-06-22 20:52 Nobuo Kawakami (Kawango), former president and current advisor to Dwango, posted an account of Nico's early boom period, describing its initial split personality as a destination for both newbie and seasoned web users as well as its initial development out of struggles with YouTube: 1
  • 2024-06-22 14:42 Kadokawa is considering legal action against outlets that have published the messages reportedly from the attacker: 1
  • 2024-06-22 08:00 NewsPicks claims they've obtained communications between the perpetrator of the attack and Dwango management that outline specific ransom demands. Reportedly, Kadokawa has been asked to pay 1.7 billion JPY (roughly 165 BTC currently) to have data decrypted. The accompanying article is paywalled: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-21 19:42 Sige reaffirms that the engineering team dedicated to recovery is independent from the team building Re:Kari: 1
  • 2024-06-21 18:01 Nico has published a list of improvements they've made to Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) over the last week, including previous publicized improvements but also restoration of functionality like video thumbnails, toggling comments, and skipping: 1
  • 2024-06-21 17:20 Niconama (Re:Kari)'s first show, its initial live broadcast from 2007 with Hiroyuki and Akihiko Koizuka, will be broadcast on June 22nd at 21:00 JST: 1
  • 2024-06-21 16:00 Niconico made their previously scheduled presentation at AWS Summit Japan outlining their video infrastructure migration to AWS, which was completed in March. Prior to the migration, all video and live streaming infrastructure was entirely on-premises starting in 2016. 21.6 million videos were migrated, accounting for more than 5 PiB of storage. Cost estimates became more accurate and server utilization decreased as a result, which is what ultimately allowed for economy mode to be abolished: 1
  • 2024-06-21 15:02 Niconi Commons (Re:Kari) has now launched, with metadata, thumbnails, and license details for referenced works restored: 1
  • 2024-06-20 18:00 NicoFT, an NFT storefront for creators, has been restored with limited functionality. New items are planned to be promoted at the bottom of video viewing pages on Re:Kari: 1, 2</a>
  • 2024-06-20 Niconama plans to promote broadcasts from previous streamers that are now streaming to other services: 1
  • 2024-06-20 Limited quantities of a small Terebi-chan plush are available again from Dwango's store: 1
  • 2024-06-19 23:14 Niconama (Re:Kari) appears to also be using the newer version of the Niconico logo: 1
  • 2024-06-19 19:33 Niconama (Re:Kari), along with Niconico Douga (Re:Kari), friends.nico (their now closed Mastodon instance), and Niconico Douga (γ), were all built in three days: 1
  • 2024-06-19 18:50 Niconama (Re:Kari) is showing the old Twitter bird icon as a share option, notable because Nico had just finished transitioning to a new X share icon on May 27th: 1
  • 2024-06-19 18:50 Niconama now has an accompanying (Re:Kari) version that's serving a single channel stream, also developed over three days. They plan to begin cycling through past official broadcasts beginning next week: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-19 16:25 Hyadain posts in support Nico, noting that many of his uploads to Nico were made in 2008: 1
  • 2024-06-18 19:00 Kadokawa held their scheduled general shareholder meeting. The extent of damage still hasn't been confirmed and they are continuing to work on restoring data into a safe environment before calculating the business impact. Backups for some systems has been verified, which is why certain services and core Kadokawa services are projected to be restored more quickly than Nico. Approximately 250 engineers are working on Nico's recovery: 1
  • 2024-06-18 17:20 Nico is still in discussions to resume payments with the credit card processors that have been suspended over the past few months: 1
  • 2024-06-18 13:34 Reinforcing that we're in a time loop, Time Leap from The Girl Who Lept Through Time was playing leading into Kadokawa's general shareholder meeting: 1
  • 2024-06-17 Kadokawa has seen approximately a 12% drop in their valuation since the cyber attack began. Their next general meeting for shareholders is scheduled for June 18th 14:00 JST: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-17 12:39 Re:Kari will cycle over to uploads from 2008 beginning June 18th 12:00 JST: 1
  • 2024-06-17 10:27 Nico has donated to Peace Winds Japan in support of their Taiwan earthquake relief effort: 1
  • 2024-06-16 19:26 &es; has developed another search portal for Re:Kari that allows filtering by metadata: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-16 17:04 beatmario posts an 音MAD celebrating Nico: 1
  • 2024-06-16 More aggressive geofencing seems to now apply to Re:Kari as some VPNs begin returning 403 errors.
  • 2024-06-15 A clip of Let's Go Onmyouji (sm9) receiving comments on Re:Kari receives over 40k reposts with it being described as "the largest association of internet senior citizens in Reiwa": 1
  • 2024-06-15 15:00 Vocareview, a DJ event, is held as scheduled and Sige performs as planned. Sige confirms engineers have been working for seven days straight and will be taking the weekend off: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-15 Nanasi launches an unofficial search portal for Re:Kari listing all viewable videos. After the site is promoted by Sige, traffic begins to spike: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-15 Because Nico users often use the site late at night, there's a cheeky speculation that they may have been the canaries to discover that Kadokawa more broadly was under attack: 1
  • 2024-06-14 Sige posts "Niconico will never die, it will always come back from the dead": 1
  • 2024-06-14 Nico launches their own official NGワード function. Fans begin to circulate crowdsourced lists of words to filter: 1
  • 2024-06-14 19:48 Nico officially cancels their birthday celebrations for a number of vocal synth characters. Celebrations later than July 8th have not been officially cancelled: 1
  • 2024-06-14 19:36 Musukataisa launches a userscript that brings NGワード to Re:Kari, a function that allows users to filter specific words and strings from visible comments. This mirrors the initial development of NGワード that began unofficially, with many wondering if we've entered a time loop: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-14 19:25 Sige confirms videos on Re:Kari will be cycled out based on upload year: 1
  • 2024-06-14 18:00 Vocacolle (formerly Nicobox) hosts a free chat space for Vocaloid fans on YouTube: 1
  • 2024-06-14 Customcast, a 3D character maker operated by Dwango, exits maintenance with some functionality still unavailable: 1
  • 2024-06-14 Fans have launched a Niconico Douga (Re:Kari) wiki covering the videos available to view: 1
  • 2024-06-14 Fans compile a list of the Vocaloid songs available to view on the placeholder site. 20 original songs and 20 covers were selected: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-14 18:00 Nico has launched a barebones site on a public cloud server serving select videos from 2007. New videos will be cycled out periodically, likely themed around years.

    This new site was developed in three days and also shows off a new player that includes basic comment functionality. While previous metadata like view count, comment count, tags, and description are visible, you can only roll a gacha to load 10 new videos and select one to watch. Comments and views recorded here will not be carried over when the site recovers.

    Being mindful of the attack, access is only available in Japan and no new functionality will be added. As is tradition for Nico with site refreshes and revamps, they've branded this version as Re:Kari (Re:仮): 1
  • 2024-06-14 15:00 Nico updates their initial status post to include a table outling their response so far. On the 9th, police and an external agency were consulted of the issue. On the 10th, Japan's commission tasked with protecting PII was notified. On the 11th, Japan's Financial Services Agency was notified: 1
  • 2024-06-14 15:00 Kadokawa posts a news release mentioning that payments may be delayed to some business partners, as accounting and payment systems are also impacted. There is an expectation that Kadokawa's broader publishing business and new releases will be affected: 1
  • 2024-06-14 15:00 Nico posts a recorded statement from Takeshi Natsuno, CEO for Kadokawa Group, apologizing to all parties. He mentions again that the attack was concentrated on Nico's services and that other services were impacted due to the spread of ransomware through Kadokawa's private cloud. They plan to restore many related Kadokawa services by the end of June: 1
  • 2024-06-14 15:00 Nico posts a recorded statement from CTO Keiichi Suzuki and COO Shigetaka Kurita, announced previously on the 10th, apologizing to all parties.

    Keiichi provides an architectural breakdown of Kadokawa's and Nico's services being split between a public and private cloud, showing how virtual machines in the private cloud became infected with ransomware which spread internally. As the compromise exceeded their level of control, they cut off external communications and an engineer shut down servers in their data center physically. He additionally explains that some backups may have been encrypted beyond recovery, though investigation is still in a preliminary stage and they expect not all backups to be unrecoverable.

    There is some hinting that this may have originated as a spear phishning attack targeting specific individuals for access. As Nico has largely transitioned to remote work, they've been able to proceed swiftly on recovery without being impacted by their internal network being down. Restoration is being envisioned in a four-stage plan: isolating and cleaning infected servers, rescuing all possible data, rebuilding Nico's services as necessary, and then testing them for resiliancy. As mentioned before, there is hedging that many systems will need to be rebuilt from scratch: 1
  • 2024-06-14 15:00 Dwango posts an FAQ that offers specifics on the attack to Nico: 1
    • Kadokawa suffered a ransomware attack to their internal private cloud shared across services. When the problem was discovered, virtual machines were remotely shut down and a task force was established to investigate. When it was determined that the attacker was attempting to reboot systems to return them online, servers were physically disconnected from power and network. As a resuilt, Kadokawa's internal network and services were affected, which slowed their initial public response. Kadokawa's offices at Kabuzika Tower were also closed in response.
    • Service will take at a minimum one month to be restored, with a plan to restore functionality and services in stages. They provide no guarantee that all functionality can be restored going forward. There is some hedging that restoring functionality is expected to take longer than the month.
    • All video data is safe, as it was previously migrated to the public cloud during the Dwango Media Services migration that began last year. Comment data and timeshift are served internally, which will require further investigation to recover.
    • Initial evidence suggests this was a planned attack targeting Nico services. Internal accounts and networks are being reset, and additional security measures and management policies are being considered. Together, these hint towards an intrustion through a company device or account.
    • Premium subscribers, channel members, and uploaders in the creators program will be compensated during June and July. No plans are established yet for how compensation will be paid out. It is not possible to cancel any memberships currently. Membership streaks and discounts for the future are also under consideration.
    • Additional confirmation that no personal data, including credit card information, is expected to have been leaked. This is still under active investigation, so they also offer the standard boilerplate to change passwords, activate two-factor auth, and check login sessions across other services.
    • This announcement was delayed to prevent revealing any information on their response to the attacker.
  • 2024-06-13 23:14 Shu, a popular ボカロP, makes a "Niconico Revival" melody including 62 songs: 1
  • 2024-06-13 Niconico News launches an official Bluesky account, the first official account on the service and something Sige had been advocating for a few months prior: 1
  • 2024-06-12 Nico uploaders begin reposting videos to hashtags like #ニコニコ鯖落ちアイマス動画祭り to make them accessible during the downtime: 1
  • 2024-06-12 N Air, a Streamlabs fork including a voice changer, continues to be available during maintenance: 1
  • 2024-06-11 Business Journal proviodes an analysis on what it might take to rebuild Nico's services, along with a statement from Sige confirming they are still being attacked. Kenta Tanaka, a data analyist, speculates that the age and patchwork of the system may make it more difficult to identify vulnerabilities: 1
  • 2024-06-11 A comparison of YouTube and Nico's functionality receives 10k+ reposts, praising Nico's lack of advertising, comment functions, and better search: 1
  • 2024-06-11 Some users have noted that Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) has been indexing Niconico Douga comments and Nicopedia article data stretching back to 2007, alleviating some fears that this data might be permanently lost: 1
  • 2024-06-11 Sige launches a fan club community on X where users can interact with each other. As the admin, he has to manually approve each request to join: 1
  • 2024-06-11 07:38 Kanzaki Hiro (HSP) posts about the song composed and scrapped before his first upload in 2008, Incarnation, which initially included an illustration of Kagamine Rin: 1
  • 2024-06-10 Touhou Nicollection, a video submission contest, extends its submission period for videos in June: 1
  • 2024-06-10 20:00 Niconico Info #32 broadcasts on YouTube and X in a scaled-down fashion. Sige and Ryouran largely go over posts made to the hashtag #がんばれニコニコ運営 and reiterate that they want to create a space where people can gather during this unprecendented downtime: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-10 20:00 Nico confirms they are planning a full system rebuild to make it resiliant to attack: 1
  • 2024-06-10 18:02 Niconico Manga confirms that users should not uninstall the app on their phones, as they otherwise may not be able to recover coins and purchases after maintenance ends: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-10 18:00 Nico confirms they are rebuilding their systems in response to the attacks. Live programs scheduled from June 10th to June 16th are officially cancelled. The monthly Niconico Info program regularly scheduled for 2024-06-11 will instead be broadcast on YouTube and X, though without any updates about the attacks. CTO Keiichi Suzuki and COO Shigetaka Kurita (Sige) will instead be providing an update about their recovery timeline "later this week": 1
  • 2024-06-09 18:00 Nico begins sending a blast email to channel operators indicating that they should plan to cancel any distribution of content up to the 16th. They also indicate they can't provide a timeline for recovery: 1
  • 2024-06-09 12:04 Ebten posts an additional clarfication that they do not store credit card information internally. This also aligns with statements made by Nico: 1
  • 2024-06-09 10:07 Kadokawa releases a statement indicating a failure across many of the group's websites. The statement acknowledges that they immediately shut down servers to preserve data and that they were likely the target of a cyber attack. They are investigating the possibility that personal information may have been leaked or stolen: 1
  • 2024-06-08 #がんばれニコニコ運営 begins trending as users post art, music, videos, and more in support of Nico's management: 1
  • 2024-06-08 Niconico News launches their first live stream from their YouTube account, giving users a place to chat during the attack. Later streams begin showing chat comments scrolling the screen as danmaku: 1
  • 2024-06-08 19:00 On Prism Records asks users to post videos for キラハピ2024, a song submission festival, to YouTube instead. Submissions will be accepted until midnight on the 10th: 1
  • 2024-06-08 19:00 Nico acknowledges they are under a "large-scale cyber attack" and have suspended service to minimize impact. They acknowledge that service won't be restored over the weekend and will post an update on Monday. They also begin investigating the possibility of personal data having been leaked or stolen: 1, 2
  • 2024-06-08 First indications point to Kadokawa, Nico's parent company formed from a merger with Dwango, being the target of an attack more broadly as many Kadokawa-supported services go offline or begin to be impacted. Many of Kadokawa's services, including functions of Nico, rely on Kadokawa's private cloud data center to operate. Comments on Nico are served internally and were the first function to noticeably fail. Kujibikido reports they are unable to process orders or payments due to a data center failure. Dengeki Hobby returns a server timeout error.
  • 2024-06-08 06:15 Nico announces maintenance will extend to all services with no projected end time: 1
  • 2024-06-08 06:00 Niconama goes into emergency maintenance, with a projected end time of 2024-06-10 12:00 and a notice that maintenance may be extended: 1
  • 2024-06-08 04:07 Nico makes an initial announcement that a bug preventing the use of Nico services as a whole, which began at 03:23 JST, is under investigation. Users report being unable to use most Nico services like videos, Niconama, and Vocacolle (formerly Nicobox): 1, 2
  • 2024-06-08 ~03:30 Around 03:30 JST, comments stop working across Nico services. Videos continue to load, but only after the comment server times out. The site is broadly accessible, but many people report receiving "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" errors on actions like logging in. On Niconama, many streamers respond by ending their streams early; some report they are unable to normally. Some users begin using tags to communicate.