WikiLeaks’ supporters step up cyber war

MORE cyber attacks in retaliation for attempts to block the WikiLeaks website are likely in a “data war” to protect internet freedom, a representative of one of the groups involved warned last night.

The websites of credit-card giants MasterCard and Visa have already been brought down through distributed denial-of-service attacks that temporarily disable computer servers by bombarding them with requests.

Yesterday, supporters of WikiLeaks were plotting attacks on online payment service PayPal and other perceived enemies of the publisher, which has angered US authorities by starting to release details of 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables.