Hackers from the infamous “Anonymous” group connected to the 4chan message board are attacking major institutions in retaliation for their treatment of Wikileaks.
Operation Payback has taken down the websites of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Joe Lieberman.
These are Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attacks. These cripple sites by overloading them with traffic, but don’t do any permanent damage or attempt to access customers’ financial information.
Also down for the count are the website of Julian Assange’s Swedish prosecutor and the Swedish Bank, PostFinance.
Even from prison, Assange continue to be a major headache for the world’s rich and powerful.
As Glenn Greenwald pointed out this morning on WNYC, multiple governments are taking extra-legal measures to imprison Assange and to force Wikileaks off the net. That makes these hackers feel justified going outside the law in Wikileaks’ defense. Not that 4Chan ever really needed an excuse to cause some trouble.
bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper