Canonical Services Under Sustained Cyberattack: Snap Store, Ubuntu Website, and Launchpad Affected

Users attempting to access Canonical's primary web properties on the evening of April 30 encountered persistent errors and timeouts. The company confirmed that a coordinated, cross-border cyberattack has been targeting its infrastructure, temporarily disrupting the Ubuntu website, Snap Store, and Launchpad platform. This article provides an update on the current status, affected services, and what users can do to continue working with Ubuntu.

What Happened: A Sustained, Cross-Border Attack

On April 30, around 6 PM UK time, Canonical detected an abnormal surge in traffic aimed at several of its core online services. The company described the incident as a sustained, cross-border attack—likely a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) operation designed to overwhelm servers and disrupt access. In an official statement, Canonical said it is actively working to mitigate the attack and restore full functionality. No further technical details about the attackers or the scale of the assault have been released, but the company promised to provide more updates shortly.

Affected Services: What Is and Isn't Working

Currently Offline or Impaired

• Ubuntu Website – The main ubuntu.com domain is experiencing intermittent outages, making it difficult to browse documentation, download ISOs through the web interface, or access support resources.
• Snap Store – The Snap Store (snapcraft.io) and related APIs are unreachable, which means users cannot search for, install, or update snap packages through the normal channels.
• Launchpad – The collaborative software development platform (launchpad.net) is offline, impacting package maintainers, bug tracking, and code hosting for many Ubuntu-related projects.
• archive.ubuntu.com – The primary repository mirror is down, though Canonical pointed out that the main APT repository infrastructure is not fully offline because of its distributed, multi-mirror architecture.

Still Operational

• APT Repositories (most mirrors) – Ubuntu’s Advanced Package Tool (APT) relies on a global network of mirrors. While the canonical archive.ubuntu.com is affected, many regional mirrors continue to serve updates and package installations. Users can temporarily switch to an alternative mirror by editing /etc/apt/sources.list or using the mirrors command.
• ISO Image Downloads – Direct downloads of Ubuntu installation ISOs via BitTorrent or third-party mirrors remain available. The attack did not impact the image files themselves, only the primary download page on ubuntu.com.
• Existing snap installations – Snaps already installed on users' systems continue to run. However, updates and new installs from the Snap Store are blocked until the service is restored.

Impact on Users and the Ubuntu Community

For most desktop and server users, the outage primarily affects convenience rather than core functionality. System updates via apt upgrade can still proceed if the configured mirror is operational. However, developers relying on Launchpad for continuous integration, bug tracking, or package building face significant disruption. Snap enthusiasts and IoT deployments that depend on automatic snap updates may also experience delays.

Canonical’s rapid communication—acknowledging the attack within hours—helped temper frustration. Community forums and social media channels saw a mix of troubleshooting tips and calls for patience. The incident underscores the vulnerability of centralized online services, even for major open-source organizations.

Canonical's Response and Next Steps

Canonical has mobilised its security and infrastructure teams to counter the attack. Common countermeasures include traffic filtering through scrubbing centres, rate limiting, and leveraging content delivery networks (CDNs) to absorb malicious traffic. As of the time of writing, no official timeline for full recovery has been provided. The company advises users to monitor the status page (if accessible) and official social media accounts for real-time updates.

Once services are restored, Canonical will likely conduct a post-mortem analysis to enhance resilience against future attacks. This may involve additional redundancy, DDoS protection partnerships, and improved failover mechanisms for critical services like the Snap Store.

Workarounds for Affected Users

• Change APT mirror – Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to use a mirror from your region. A list of official mirrors is available at Launchpad’s archive mirrors page (if accessible) or by searching community resources.
• Download ISOs manually – Fetch Ubuntu ISOs via BitTorrent from releases.ubuntu.com (if accessible) or trusted third-party mirrors.
• Use snap offline mode – For systems with snaps already installed, consider disabling automatic snap refreshes temporarily to avoid update failures: sudo snap refresh --hold.
• Check alternative Launchpad mirrors – Some Git repositories hosted on Launchpad may be mirrored on GitHub; check the project’s documentation.

Status Updates

Canonical has not yet enabled a dedicated status page for this incident, but users can follow @ubuntu on X (formerly Twitter) or the Ubuntu Community Hub for announcements. We will update this article when services are fully restored.

Conclusion

While the attack on Canonical’s services is inconvenient, it highlights the robustness of the APT mirror network and the availability of alternative download methods. The Snap Store and Launchpad outages are more serious for developers but are being addressed with urgency. Stay tuned for further details from Canonical, and consider using the workarounds above to minimise disruption.