ExtraTorrent, one of the largest torrent sites on the Internet, remains down following a huge DDoS attack. The site's operators are working hard to mitigate the assault and hope to have the site back online soon.

With The Pirate Bay down and possibly out, millions of file-sharers around the world are turning to alternative sources for their content.

The current top 10 torrent sites in the world are the largest beneficiaries in terms of traffic but with that comes additional attention.

One of those sites is ExtraTorrent, an index that has moved up the rankings in recent years to become a torrent scene front runner. Last year the site took the #4 position overall and with an impressive Alexa rank of 356, now sits at #3.

But despite the achievements, progress has now temporarily ground to a halt. On January 10 the site went down unexpectedly, with an all-too-familiar announcement delivered shortly after.

“Extratorrent is under DDoS attack by hackers right now. Please, keep your patience. We’ll try to fix the issues. We’ll be back shortly!” the site announced on Twitter.

Indeed, that very same day the site did return but the comeback was brief, with the admins reporting “issues” getting the index functioning again.

Early Monday the site’s operators announced that while server problems could continue, everything was on course to be fixed before January 13. But with less than a day to go, attacks against the site persist.

“ExtraTorrent still is under DDoS attack. It’s very powerful DDoS attack,” the site reported a few minutes ago.

“Our hosting provider tries to solve the issues. We hope to back soon!”

At the time of writing ExtraTorrent is available in some regions intermittently.