There’s a major problem with the internet that’s preventing websites from loading

Internet users around the world reported that top websites are not loading on Friday morning.

The affected sites include Amazon, Twitter, Etsy, Github, Spotify, and others.

The situation is developing, but it appears to have something to do with DNS hosts.

Domain Name Servers are a core part of the internet’s backbone. They translate what you type into your browser – www.businessinsider.com, for example – into IP addresses that computers can understand.

And as it happens, DYN, a major DNS host, is suffering a DDoS attack. DDoS attacks basically mean that hackers are overwhelming their servers with useless data and repeated load requests, which means that useful data – the Twitter IP address – can’t get through.

GitHub also says that it seems to be having problems with its DNS host.

DNS posted on Friday morning:

Starting at 11:10 UTC on October 21th-Friday 2016 we began monitoring and mitigating a DDoS attack against our Dyn Managed DNS infrastructure. Some customers may experience increased DNS query latency and delayed zone propagation during this time. Updates will be posted as information becomes available.

Customers with questions or concerns are encouraged to reach out to our Technical Support Team.

It later updated its status with:

This attack is mainly impacting US East and is impacting Managed DNS customer in this region. Our Engineers are continuing to work on mitigating this issue.

According to Hacker News, these sites have been affected: