A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a non-intrusive internet attack made to prevent legitimate users from accessing a website, server or application by overwhelming it with fake requests and traffic.
DDoS attacks cannot steal personal information or data, the purpose is to overload the system to make connection slow or unresponsive for users. Our internet service provider (Jisc) can put protective measures in place to block suspicious traffic and guard against attacks but that does mean some staff and users may be bounced off the network, particularly If they have tried to connect repeatedly from the same IP address. If you are finding it difficult to connect to services, please try to reboot your computer and/or your Wi-Fi router.

Why will restarting my router help?

As a precaution against further DDoS attempts, Jisc (our internet service provider) has temporarily placed us in a special group of institutions with heighted protection which allows them to prevent any IP address trying to connect multiple times.  While that blocks suspicious traffic, it occasionally means some staff and students may be bounced off the network, especially if they have tried to connect unsuccessfully a number of times. Restarting your home router will often generate a new IP address which will stop you being blocked by this protection.

If you have rebooted your router and still have issues connecting to the University’s IT services, please contact the IT Service Desk on 0114 225 3333.