A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that caused early-morning outages around the Internet seems to have gained a second wind.

Sites such as Twitter and Netflix that were experiencing outages earlier in the day were getting hit again shortly after 10:00 a.m. PST.

The attack even caused the postponement of today's SDxCentral webinar with the OpenDaylight Project. So, it's personal.

News reports say the DDoS attack is directed at Dyn, a Domain Name Service (DNS) provider. DNS translates web URLs into IP addresses. It's vital to the Internet, and it also presents an opportunity  for anyone looking to cause widespread mischief.

Maps at downdetector.com, which tracks the downtimes of major web properties, indicated the hardest-hit areas were California, the northeastern United States, and spots of western Europe. So while the attack is certainly serious, it's arguably gotten extra publicity due to the concentration of tech journalists in Silicon Valley and New York.

Photo: The Level 3 outage map from downdetector.com.