A group, linked with the imageboard 4chan, has undertaken distributed denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Swiss bank Post Finance and other sites that refused their services to whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.
According to Ars Technica, the attacks are being taken under the Operation: Payback banner, which was responsible for attacks against organisations involved in anti-piracy lawsuits against file sharers, including the RIAA and MPAA.
The Swiss bank Post Finance’s website experienced downtime for more than 16 hours and is still down as of the time of writing.
Paypal’s blog was taken offline but the main site was not attacked.
The group also attacked the website of the Swedish prosecutors involved in the case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sex crimes. This site is also down.
Reportedly, the group is targeting any site that is “bowing down to government pressure.”
Many sites have refused services for Wikileaks, but have denied it was due to government pressure.
EveryDNS.net revoked its services from Wikileaks, saying it violated the terms of services. Amazon also removed its hosting services, saying the content Wikileaks posted was not theirs and could harm others.
Assange is under arrest in the UK to face the allegations of sexual assault made against him.
