(CNET) -- An attack directed at the DNS provider for some of the Internet's larger e-commerce companies -- including Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Expedia -- took several Internet shopping sites offline Wednesday evening, two days before Christmas. Neustar, the company that provides DNS services under the UltraDNS brand name, confirmed an attack took place Wednesday afternoon, taking out sites or rendering them extremely sluggish for about an hour. A representative who answered the customer support line said the attacks were directed against Neustar facilities in Palo Alto and San Jose, California, and Allen Goldberg, vice president of corporate communications for Neustar, confirmed that at about 4:45 p.m. PST, "our alarms went off."
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A DDoS attack Wednesday evening crippled some of larger e-commerce sites
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Neustar, a DNS provider in California, was targeted, hurting Amazon, Wal-Mart and more
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The attack, two days before Christmas, foiled plans of some last-minute shoppers
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The response limited the problems to @placeholder, he said.
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"It's difficult to tell at this point how much is a @placeholder attack and how much is collateral damage from the attack that is being felt in other ways," like a domino effect, he said.