A global attack on the DNS (domain name system) caused disruptions affecting customers of Internet hosting company Akamai Technologies Inc., including search engine sites, said Jeff Young, an Akamai spokesman.

Akamai disputed early reports that the disruption in service to the sites, including yahoo.com, google.com and microsoft.com, was specific to its network of DNS servers, which translate user-friendly domain names into numeric IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. Instead, the problem on Akamai's network was part of a "large scale international attack on the Internet infrastructure," Young said. However, at least one Web performance monitoring company said it has no evidence of a wider attack.

By Paul Roberts at Info World.

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