Media News - Thursday, August 16, 2012

WikiLeaks back online after cyber attack

WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, came back online after what it described as a sophisticated and sustained cyberattack over the last nine days which it claimed was the work of a large organisation. Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks spokesman, did not directly accuse the US government of being behind the attacks which made the organisation’s website unreachable, but he implied that a link was possible. The US Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks after the group published leaked US diplomatic cables two years ago. A group called AntiLeaks has said it was behind the attacks on WikiLeaks and has denied any connection to US government agencies. Internet security experts have questioned, however, if AntiLeaks is what it says it is. Last week, before the closure, WikiLeaks started to publish fresh leaks about surveillance in the US. WikiLeaks has just started taking credit card donations again – through a company in France – after two years of having payments to them blocked by Visa and MasterCard, the credit card processing companies. This had forced the organisation to reduce its activities. WikiLeaks made an appeal last week for donations from its supporters so that it could purchase more computing power to stay online despite the attacks on the site. The website was functioning again on Tuesday after striking a deal with Cloudfare, a content delivery network that improves website performance and online security. (Financial Times)

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