[nemoforone]

Anonymous Mastercard attack 'hits payments'

Web attacks on the Mastercard site have disrupted payments, the BBC has learnt.

The site is among several targeted by the Anonymous group of hackers, who have pledged to pursue firms that have withdrawn services from Wikileaks.

Mastercard, which stopped processing payments to the whistle-blowing site, said the attack had had "no impact" on people's ability to use their cards.

But the BBC has been contacted by a payment firm that said its customers had "a complete loss of service".

In particular, it said that an authentication service for online payments known as Mastercard's SecureCode, had been disrupted.

Other readers have also said that have had problems with online payments. The scale of the problems is still unclear.

Mastercard has not responded to the claims.

Earlier, Doyel Maitra of the firm, said: "Mastercard is experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website - Mastercard.com - but this remains accessible.

"We are working to restore normal speed of service. There is no impact whatsoever on Mastercard or Maestro cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions."
False account

Anonymous, which claimed to have carried out the attack, is a loose-knit group of hacktivists, with links to the notorious message board 4chan.

It said that it has hit several targets, including the website of the prosecutors who are acting in a legal case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Continue reading the main story
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Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets”

End Quote Coldblood Anonymous

PayPal, which has stopped processing donations to Wikileaks, has also been targeted.

The firm said Wikileaks' account had violated its terms of services.

"On 27 November the State Department, the US government, basically wrote a letter [to Wikileaks] saying that [its] activities were deemed illegal in the United States," PayPal's Osama Bedier told the Le Web conference in France.

"And as a result our policy group had to make the decision of suspending their account.

"It's honestly, just pretty straight forward from our perspective and there's not much more to it than that," he said.

Other firms that have distanced themselves from the site have also been hit in the recent spate of attacks including the Swiss bank, PostFinance, which closed the account of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The bank said Mr Assange had provided false information when opening his account. BBC News - Anonymous Mastercard attack 'hits payments'

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