Government websites could be hacked in Wikileaks revenge attacks

Websites which hold personal data of British taxpayers could be next in line for computer hackers – who are keen to target organisations who are seen as enemies of Wikileaks.

A wide range of companies have been attacked by ‘Anonymous', an online network, after withdrawing support for Wikileaks in response to legal concerns over the release of secret US diplomatic cables.

Visa and MasterCard both had their websites targeted by the group while Paypal and Amazon were also on the hit list, although their sites have yet to be attacked.

Sir Peter Ricketts has told senior civil servants that Whitehall should be prepared to come under attack from ‘hackivists' angry at British authorities over the arrest of Julian Assange.

The DDOS attacks started after the financial companies blocked donations to Wikileaks and Amazon ejected it from their servers. Websites belonging to government bodies in Sweden have also been crippled by attacks. Assange is currently being held in prison for allegations of rape and sexual molestation and has a court hearing soon.

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