My web host has lots of different sites on this server. Unfortunately all the tenants suffer if the server comes under attack. That happened this evening with a DDOS or distributed denial of service attack. Geofffox.com disappeared from the Internet for an hour or so.
In a DDOS the website is blasted with much more traffic than it can handle. The traffic comes from multiple sources at once–that’s the distributed part. The attackers are often unprotected PCs turned into zombies. The owner of the PC might not notice anything except his computer’s a little slower.
There’s nothing I can do. There’s not much my host can do either. The DDOS might be random, or possibly someone’s upset with one of my server neighbors. It might even be an extortion plot against someone. I’ll never know.
Hopefully whatever it was has run its course and gone away. Hopefully.