RJ and Makay

A report by Web analytics firm Netcraft says supporters of WikiLeaks have sent denial of service attacks to the websites of several financial institutions to retaliate for their discontinuation of their financial services with WikiLeaks. DDoS attacks were also launched by supporters against Swiss bank after it froze accounts belonging to WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.  Its PostFinance.ch website was completely immobilized in the process. The site had stopped doing business with Assange after he falsely listed his permanent residence as Geneva.  PostFinance.ch released a statement saying, “Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with Postfinance. . . For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account.” Additionally, Postfinance stated that its rules and regulations say it has the option of “terminating business relationships which run contrary to public and moral opinion.”

Other businesses abandoning relationships with WikiLeaks include PayPal, which blogged that it was also targeted in a DDoS attack after it chose to permanently restrict WikiLeak’s account after it violated its acceptable use policy. Mastercard has also recently announced that it will restrict WikiLeak’s account, which will prevent the site from receiving payments from MasterCard products.