The Register web site has been knocked offline today by a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). The technology news outlet says the attack began at about 7 a.m. GMT. "The attack continues — and is increasing in severity, but our hosting provider is doing what it can to mitigate its effects," the company reported.

By this afternoon, the site's performance was improved, according to The Register, which temporarily turned off its CSS stylesheets to reduce network traffic and blunt the impact of the attack.

The Register made no mention of why it believed it had been targeted, but indicated that it believes the attacks may continue. "Fingers crossed that this is an end to the matter, although we are warned that the attack may increase in severity again at any time," the Register said in an udpate. "Accordingly, our hosts and tech boys are pulling out all the stops to prevent a repeat of today's events." The Register's web site is hosted by Rackspace, which provides specialized defenses against DDoS attacks.