Google opens Project Shield's DDoS protection to all news websites

Have you ever gone to visit one of your favorite sites, only to find that you can't connect? You'll quickly check another site, just to make sure that it's not your internet connection. Then, you'll assume that they're just having some server issues, and will just come back later. You might not realize it, but the site you were trying to visit was likely suffering from a DDoS attack.

For those unaware, a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is when a group uses a large number of computers to flood a website with traffic. This exhausts the available bandwidth, and causes the page to become unresponsive. There are a variety of methods of fighting off such an attack, but it can be a major annoyance that still leaves a site down for much longer than the people running it would like.

Back in 2013, Google announced Project Shield, a program to help protect certain sites from DDoS attacks. They specifically wanted to help out smaller websites that didn't have the resources to help themselves. And even more specifically, they wanted to help those who were more likely to be targeted, such as independent news outlets, human rights websites, and elections-related content.

The program has apparently been a success, and now Google is opening the program up to all news websites, regardless of size or location. The idea is that when news is censored by any means, the people who depend on those websites lose out on valuable information. And by protecting news publications, it means that those websites aren't spending valuable time and money trying to simply keep their website operational. Those resources can now go into reporting on the news, instead.

Source: Google