Now it's cyber war: Army of hackers target MasterCard and PayPal in revenge for them pulling the plug on WikiLeaks

• Visa, PayPal, Amazon also come under attack through the night
• Card users unable to make online payments for six hours
• 5,000 'hacktivists' believed to be behind electronic onslaught

Computer hackers have sent two of the world’s biggest credit card companies into meltdown in revenge for cutting off payments to the WikiLeaks website.
The attack was launched by a shadowy international group called ‘Anonymous’ which said MasterCard and Visa had been targeted for freezing the account of the whistleblowing site.
The devastating blow to the credit card giants came on one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.
Hackers also targeted online payment system PayPal, Amazon and a Swiss bank over the WikiLeaks row.

Up to 5,000 hackers have combined under the 'Operation Payback' umbrella to target Visa and Mastercard

Yesterday, a six-hour stoppage on the Mastercard secure code system is thought to have affected hundreds of thousands of shoppers worldwide and highlights how vulnerable the world’s computer systems are to attack.
Last night Visa website was also taken down for a period after it came under attack.
It is thought just a few dozen ‘hacktivists’ launched the electronic onslaught, which was taken up by other supporters.

Operation: Payback was formed in September to target groups opposed to internet piracy

The ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attack involved around 2,000 computers bombarding the website’s host computers with requests for information, causing them to crash.
WikiLeaks has been publishing classified U.S. diplomatic cables, to the fury of Washington authorities.
They have lobbied to cut off all support for the website which they are desperate to shut down.
Yesterday a spokesman for Anonymous, calling himself ‘Coldblood’, a 22-year-old computer programmer based in London, said: ‘Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets.
'As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means.
‘We feel that WikiLeaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people versus the government.
‘The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call.’
In a further communique online, Anonymous warned: ‘We will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks, including multibillion-dollar companies such as PayPal.’
The spokesman added that the group’s intention ‘was to be a force for chaotic good’.

Anonymous has previously been linked to attacks on websites belonging to the Church of Scientology and the music industry.

Yesterday’s onslaught was dubbed ‘Operation: Payback’. MasterCard first reported an attack which partially shut down its corporate website Mastercard.com at around 9.30am yesterday.

WikiLeaks founderJulian Assange has been remanded in custody over claims that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women

Initially it said no customers had been affected. But by the evening the attacks had escalated and it is thought hundreds of thousands of online transactions were stopped.
The problem came about when shoppers tried to pay for their purchases and were redirected to a website run by MasterCard called Securecode.
This site was not authorising payments so the transactions could not be completed.
MasterCard declined to confirm that customers had been affected. But in a statement made to a respected website it reportedly said it suffered ‘a service disruption to the MasterCard Directory Server’ and added that ‘customers may still be experiencing intermittent connectivity issues’.
Last night MasterCard said in a statement from its HQ in New York that its systems had not been compromised by ‘a concentrated effort to flood our corporate web site with traffic and slow access’.
It said: ‘We are working to restore normal service levels. There is no impact on our cardholders’ ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally.’

This online retailer took to Facebook to warn customers they might experience problems paying for wine

A screen shot of the Mastercard website showing technical problems yesterday afternoon

A spokesman for Visa said the site experienced 'heavier than normal traffic' and repeated attempts to load the Visa.com and Visa.co.uk sites were met without success.
A PayPal executive admitted the firm stopped processing WikileLeaks' payments after being pressured by the US State Department.

The release of US diplomatic cables has sparked fury in America

Speaking at a conference in Paris, Osama Bedier said: 'State Dept told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward.'
According to the website TechCrunch, the admission was greeted by a chorus of boos from the audience.
Bedier, a PayPal vice president, added: 'We first comply with regulations around the world making sure that we protect our brand.'
He claimed the State Department branded WikiLeaks illegal on November 27.
John Mueller, PayPal's general counsel, said the attacks did not affect PayPal's stance on WikiLeaks, whose account would 'remain restricted'.
DDoS attacks, which are illegal in the UK, involve overloading a website with high numbers of requests so it stops working.
Anonymous, which openly admits to using DDoS tactics, wrote on its website: 'While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship.
'This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy.
'We will find and will attack those who stand against WikiLeaks and we will support WikiLeaks in everything they need.'
The group's Facebook site, which had attracted more than one million users, was taken offline by the company for violating its terms of use.
The microblogging site Twitter, source of much WikiLeaks support, could become the next target for hackers after Anonymous posted a statement claiming: 'Twitter you're next for censoring WikiLeaks discussion.'
Some supporters accuse Twitter of preventing the term 'WikiLeaks' from appearing on the site's popular trending topics, a claim that Twitter has denied.
The hackers have pledged an 'infowar' on companies that have withdrawn support from WikiLeaks during the past week.
As well as DDoS attacks, Anonymous is helping to create hundreds of mirror sites for WikiLeaks, allowing users to continue to access the website's content via a different server.
WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, 39, has been remanded in custody over claims that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women.
The websites of the Swedish Prosecutor and the lawyer representing the women were attacked yesterday.
Other websites targeted included those of U.S. senator Joe Lieberman, an outspoken critic of WikiLeaks, and Sarah Palin, who said Assange should be hunted like a terrorist.
Have you been affected by the MasterCard cyber attacks? Ring 0207 9386059