WikiLeaks, the organization that came to fame by publishing confidential government and financial reports, has been the victim of a hacking that's left its website offline.
The denial of service attacks happened over the course of the week, and at first, WikiLeaks, for some reason, thought the attacks were the caused by either of three things: "1. Olympics cover 2. Upcomng [sic] release. 3. Ongoing Syria, Stratfor releases."
All three were wrong. The attacks were carried out by a hacker collective known as AntiLeaks. In a message posted to Twitter, the group explained why it targeted the rebel news organization:
“We are not doing this to call attention to ourselves. We are young adults, citizens of the United States of America and are deeply concerned about the recent developments with Julian Assange and his attempt at aslyum [sic] in Ecuador."Assange is the head of a new breed of terrorist. We are doing this as a protest against his attempt to escape justice into Ecuador. This would be a catalyst for many more like him to rise up in his place. We will not stop and they will not stop us.”
All of this is pretty ironic when you consider the time the Anonymous hacker group came to WikiLeak's defense earlier this year and attacked a number of financial institutions like PayPal and Bank of America with denial of service attacks.
WikiLeaks is currenlty raising money for more bandwidth and is instructing readers and supporters to head to a mirror site to donate money.
