Wikileaks spam attacks threaten Christmas sales rush

WIKILEAKS supporters are downloading increasing amounts of the spam -shooting software used to attack companies seen as hostile — a development that could challenge even internet giants such as PayPal and Amazon.com during the crucial Christmas shopping season.

US data security company Imperva says downloads of the attack programme used to bombard websites with bogus requests for data have jumped to over 40,000, with thousands of new downloads reported yesterday .

The freely-available software, dubbed Low Orbit Ion Cannon, is a critical part of the campaign by “hacktivists” seeking to take revenge on sites they believe have betrayed WikiLeaks, which has outraged American officials by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables.