We are currently experiencing some slower then normal site loading particularly with site images. All sites are still operational just not operating as quickly as normal. Technical support is working with our hosting provider Rackspace to determine the cause and to resolve it. Once I have further information I will update this request.
Update 1:45
What we are experiencing is a denial of service attack. This is when hackers flood a networks with millions of requests in an effort to overwhelm it. The servers are handling it but this extra traffic is significantly slowing things down.
Update 2:46pm
All sites went down for about 5 minutes due to an error in the settings from our hosting company who is trying to combat the attack. Service was immediately resumed less then 5 minutes after the outage started. We are continuing to fight the denial of service attack.
Update 3:57pm
We have slowed down the denial of service attack and sites are now operating much faster, we are still monitoring the situation and expect a bit of slowness to continue until the attack is completely stopped. I do not expect further updates until tomorrow since we only monitoring at this point, unless there is a significant change.
Update 11:45pm
Attack traffic has subsided considerably and our hosting provider Rackspace as well as myself are continuing to monitor the situation, there are no new significant developments at this time.