Turns out the New York Times' website was hit with a domain name system (DNS) attack, in which hackers target the system that matches a website URL (like nytimes.com) to the servers where that website's content is stored. None of the New York Times' content was affected; people just couldn't find it.

The Kicker: Simple security etiquette might have prevented the attack.

The New York Times' DNS records are managed by an Australian-based company called Melbourne IT, a domain registrar similar to the American company GoDaddy.