Internet infrastructure provider Vocus has confirmed it was hit with a DDoS attack which took its internet down for about an hour today, affecting people across the country.

Many people's internet is now connected again, after a widespread outage affecting a number of companies across the country, including Spark, Vodafone, Slingshot and Orcon.

The website Down Detector is now reporting a sharp drop in outages, indicating services are back online for many.

A DDoS attack is where attackers try to disrupt the normal traffic to an internet service, server, or network. The aim is to hinder access, and stop people from getting to the services they need. The attacks work by flooding a website with fake requests, exceeding its capacity. That means normal, legitimate, requests can't get through.

The technique was what was used in a series of attacks on the NZX last year.

Orcon says in a tweet that the issue was now resolved.

"We're keeping a close eye on the network to make sure everything is OK. Once again, we're really sorry for the disruption, we realise the timing was less than ideal!"

Reports came in from all over the country, but mostly in the North Island, including Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington. Users in Christchurch and Dunedin also reported being affected.

More to follow ...

RNZ