Akamai Blames Site Outages On Attack

Several major Web sites - including Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google - were inaccessible at times early Tuesday due to what the company that distributes them online called an attack.

The problem began about 8:45 a.m. EDT and lasted about two hours, said Jeff Young, a spokesman for Akamai Technologies Inc., whose network of servers mirror some of the Web’s top destinations to improve their performance.

Young called it a “large scale, international attack on Internet infrastructure.” However, there was no evidence that non-Akamai infrastructure was affected.

Amit Yoran, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division, declined to comment on the alleged attack and its scope, deferring questions to Akamai. The government-funded CERT network emergency response team said it was too early to determine what happened.

Speedera Networks Inc., an Akamai rival, had none of its systems targeted in an attack Tuesday, spokesman Jay Mejia said.

Read more at the Star Tribune.