MasterCard crippled by WikiLeaks payback attack
UPDATE: 11am: Visa.com is now also down.MasterCard's website has been crippled by a coordinated attack by Wikileaks supporters referred to as Operation Payback.
UPDATE: 11am: Visa.com is now also down.
MasterCard’s website has been crippled by a coordinated attack by Wikileaks supporters referred to as Operation Payback.
Online activists appear to be acting in revenge for MasterCard announcing this week it would stop processing donations to WikiLeaks, claiming it engaged in illegal activity.
Visa has also announced it will no longer process donations to WikiLeaks.
A service message posted for retailers states:
MasterCard SecureCode is currently down. This means that all MasterCard and Maestro transactions cannot be processed via 3-D Secure. This is affecting all payment service providers and is not SecureTrading specific.
For our Payment Pages merchants transactions will continue to be processed as non 3-D Secure transactions.
NBR understands in-store MasterCard transactions are still working.
They have also attacked the website of Swedish prosecution authority and the lawyer for the two woman Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is accused of raping.
The "distributed denial of service" attack was carried out by a group of "hacktivists" going by the name Anonymous.
It is planning to target social media site Twitter, which it claims is "censoring" discussion about WikiLeaks by stopping it appearing in its trends list.
NBR staff
Thu, 09 Dec 2010
Thu, 09 Dec 2010
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MasterCard crippled by WikiLeaks payback attack
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