The Daily Telegraph website has been wiped off the technological map by hackers reports The Guardian.

The paper who foresaw the future of publication on the Internet ploughing huge resources into it’s online project whilst laying off staff is said to be working through the night to get Telegraph.co.uk back online.

A spokesperson confirmed that it had been hit by a distributed denial of service attack, which began late morning and intensified throughout the day.

A denial of service (DOS) is a malicious attack where thousands of multiple requests are sent to a site’s servers at once, causing it to crash.

DoS attacks are often powered by networks of computers or “botnets”, controlled by one “botmaster”. One hacker recently claimed that as many as one in eight PCs could be part of a botnet, with malicious software installed without the owner’s knowledge.

When asked by police if there was anyone that may have a grudge against the Telegraph, a senior executive was seen to shuffle his feet and mumble something about 130 p45s that were issued to staff during the paper’s recent move to offices in Victoria.

However despite the problems, the paper has been quick to reassure it’s readers that house prices will not be adversely affected and that tomorrows print edition will have a pretty young lady in jodpurs on the front page.