Twitter Defending Against Denial-Of-Service Attack

August 6, 2009 1:34 p.m. EST

New York, NY (AHN) - A denial-of-service attack silenced Twitter Thursday and the micro-blogging site's operator is defending against hackers to restore and keep the free SMS-based service running.

A flood of junk traffic at 9 a.m. slowed down Twitter preventing users from accessing the site and posting messages.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone confirmed the attack and ongoing defense of the site in a blog post.

The DOS attack is the latest attempt by hackers to disrupt the service of the popular social networking site. Hackers had stolen e-mail accounts of Twitter employees and had launched phishing and spam attacks earlier.