Top websites shut in cyber attack

WASHINGTON: Major internet services including Twitter, Spotify and Amazon suffered service interruptions and outages on Friday as a US internet provider came under a cyber attack. 

The internet service company Dyn, which routes and manages internet traffic, said that it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its domain name service shortly after 1100 GMT. 

The service was restored in about two hours, Dyn said.  The attack meant that millions of internet users could not access the websites of major online companies such as Netflix and Reddit as well as the crafts marketplace Etsy and the software developer site Github, according to media reports. 

The website Gizmodo said it had received reports of difficulty at sites for media outlets including CNN, The Guardian, Wired, HBO and People as well as the money transfer service PayPal.  Dyn, which is headquartered in New Hampshire, said the attack went after its domain name service, causing interruptions and slowdowns for internet users. 

"This morning, October 21, Dyn received a global DDoS attack on our Managed DNS infrastructure in the east coast of the United States," Scott Hilton, executive vice president for products at Dyn, said in a statement. "We have been aggressively mitigating the DDoS attack against our infrastructure." The company said it was continuing to investigate.