Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Amazon is targeted by the cyber anarchists - and is Whitehall next?


Computer s supporting the Wikis whistleblowing campaign tried to bring down the Amazon website yesterday as frs grew that the British government will be next.Whitehall ramped up its defences against a cyber attack as ‘tivists’ continued a revenge campaign against perceived enemies of Wikis’ efforts to secret information into the public domain.Specialists are monitoring every Whitehall website after the ­s shut down the Swedish government site in revenge for the prosecution of Wikis founder Julian Assange.In custody: Wikis founder Julian Assange was arrested in London rlier this week
Yesterday, having alrdy crashed MasterCard payment systems around the world, they also attacked Amazon because it had removed Wikis information from its computer servers.
The electronic attack failed, but the group behind the – which calls itself Anonymous – said it would continue to target computer systems around the world.Whitehall computer security analysts are incrsingly concerned that the UK will be next and are now on permanent alert.
If successful, an attack on Amazon, the UK’s biggest online retailer, could have cost it millions in the run-up to Christmas.

A self-appointed spokesman for Operation Payback – the banner used by s supporting the Wikis campaign – vowed Amazon was in its sights.
Giving his name as ‘Cold Blood’, the 22-yr-old software engineer told the BBC: ‘In recent months and yrs we’ve seen governments and the EU trying to creep in and limit the freedom of the internet.
‘Our main targets are Amazon, MasterCard and PayPal (the online payment service).
‘We feel that they have bowed to government pressure.’
Other members of Anonymous later posted messages dissociating the group from Cold Blood. Visa’s corporate website was ­suffering ‘intermittent’ disruption yesterday following a temporary shutdown on Wednesday night. A spokesman said customers were not affected.
MasterCard’s website was disrupted for around six hours on Wednesday, with thousands of customers unable to make payments.
Dutch prosecutors said last night they have arrested a 16-yr-old boy suspected of involvement in the Wikis cyber attacks on websites ‘including MasterCard and PayPal, among others’.
The youth’s name was not relsed and it was not clr how important a role he is suspected of playing in the attacks.
Yesterday Wikis continued to controversial diplomatic cables online even though Mr Assange, 39, is in custody facing deportation over claims that he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

Source: Daily Mail



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