Popular internet sites disrupted by cyberattack on major US company

LONDON -- Popular websites like Twitter, Netflix and Visa are experiencing disruption following a cyberattack.

There have been reports of internet disruption across the East Coast of the United States after a key firm was hit by a cyberattack.

New Hampshire-based Dyn said its server infrastructure was hit by a distributed denial-of-service attack, which works by overwhelming targeted machines with malicious electronic traffic.

The company said in a series of statements that the attack took place early Friday local time and created disruption, but that "services have been restored to normal."

The level of disruption caused was hard to gauge, but Dyn provides internet traffic optimization to some of the biggest names on the web, including Twitter, Netflix and Visa.

Several sites, such as coder hangout Github, said they were experiencing problems, although it was not immediately clear whether the issues were linked to the cyberattack.