A number of popular websites went down on Friday amid a mass DDoS attack on New Hampshire-based company Dyn, which oversees and routes internet traffic.

Dyn is the world leader in DNS (Domain Name System) technology. They effectively operate as a switchboard operator, connecting internet users to the sites they wish to visit by translating an entry such as “www.lifezette.com” into it’s true internet address — a long, complicated string of numbers.

“WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point.”

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As two of its servers came under DDoS attack Friday morning, Dyn was unable to properly connect internet users to the websites that they wished to visit. DDoS — distributed denial of service — attacks are when hackers purposely flood servers with an immense volume of fraudulent traffic so that they are unable to respond to actual internet users.

But while DDoS attacks have been around for well over a decade, Friday’s attack was unprecedented in its scale and unique in its methods. The hackers reportedly used a program called Mirai, which allows even the most inexperienced hackers to easily hijack online devices and use them in DDoS attacks.

Once the program successfully infects a network with its malware, it spreads to every device connected to that network, creating a “botnet” of multiple devices to generate high volumes of phony internet traffic.

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Hacktivist groups Anonymous and New World took credit for the attacks on Friday afternoon, allegedly in retaliation for the Ecuadorian government’s decision to cut off Julian Assange’s internet access.

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Researchers and U.S. officials have cautioned however that there isn’t yet enough evidence to prove who is responsible, and that those groups have falsely taken credit for other attacks. Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating the attack.

However WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange certainly appear to be under the impression that the attacks were indeed orchestrated by his supporters. “Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point,” tweeted the official WikiLeaks Twitter account on Friday afternoon.