Wednesday 8 December 2010

Hackers Defend WikiLeaks by Attacking PayPal and PostFinance

A group of hackers connected to the online imageboard 4chan, often referred to as Anonymous, have retaliated against several sites that denied service to WikiLeaks shortly after the site started releasing secret embassy cables.The site of Swiss bank PostFinance, which has closed the account of WikiLeaks () founder Julian Assange, has been taken down and is still unavailable at the time of this writing. Hackers have also attacked PayPal but have only managed to take down the site’s blog (), while the service remained operational.

A spokesman for the group behind the attacks on PayPal and PostFinance said they will target any website that’s “bowing down to government pressure.” The same group is allegedly behind the series of attacks collectively called “Operation: Payback,” which targeted anti-piracy organizations such as RIAA and MPAA.
Among other companies that have denied service to WikiLeaks are DNS service provider EveryDNS.net and Amazon (). Most of these sites claim they haven’t shut down WikiLeaks’ account due to political pressure, instead naming technical or procedural reasons for denying the service to the WikiLeaks.

Update: Mastercard, which has also denied service to WikiLeaks, has had its site taken down by hackers, too.

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