http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions ... Leaks-6109The Cyber War to Defend WikiLeaks
In the last week, major American corporations affiliated with Wikileaks have been rushing to sever ties with the whistle blower site. First Amazon, whose servers hosted the website, bolted, then Paypal, MasterCard and Visa, who directed donations to the site. Critics of the companies say they were bowing to political pressures or perhaps preempting U.S. government retribution. What these firms may not have been anticipating is retribution from independent hacker squads.
Over the last few days, an online activist group known as "Anonymous" has been carrying out "Operation: Payback," an orchestrated cyber attack against the firms who have abandoned WikiLeaks. Earlier this week, they are suspected of having taken down PostFinance, the Swiss postal service bank that froze WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account. Today, the group took down MasterCard's website for much of the day. These ambitious attacks have drawn the attention of a number of security writers and bloggers.
