Hackers strike again?

This morning I've found it difficult or impossible to visit sites that have adverts (even LostCousins stutters but is still usable).

Ancestry seems to be unavailable again, also findmypast and Origins. I could get to FreeBMD and Mocavo. Broadband Speedtest is unavailable, but I can get through to Ookla. Santander and Bank of America are unavailable, but I can get Nationwide and Natwest.

I've used multiple devices and multiple Internet connections, so I don't think it's me. Are others experiencing similar problems?

 

Yes. BBC works and Hotmail doesn't.

 

All the sites that weren't working seem to be working again. Was it an attack or was there a major technical issue? Maybe Alexander will have the answer.

 

There was a significant DNS outage this morning from around 9:20am UK time. This affected the major BT hubs in London, this had a knock on effect throughout sites that relied on routes serviced by this hub. Note this was a regular technical fault and not hackers. It was fixed within two hours.

There was a work around available and that was to set your alternate DNS to use the Google open source DNS this is at 8.8.8.8 adding this DNS server as an alternate to your network settings would have meant that you would have had less issues.

 

Thanks, Alexander - I did wonder if it might be a DNS problem, but when I had the same problem with my mobile connection it seemed unlikely. I'd also have thought it unusual for DNS problems to only affect specific sites.

However, what I was most worried about, having just published a newsletter, was being flooded with emails telling me that the links in my newsletter didn't work! Fortunately this didn't happen.

 

For the record, what I forgot is that because O2 (whose network GiffGaff utilise) were once part of BT, they still share some infrastructure.