Operation: Payback's Facebook and Twitter accounts shut down [Updated]

Operation: Payback, after claiming to have shut down Visa and MasterCard's websites, has been shut down itself -- on Facebook and Twitter, anyway.
The hacker group Anonymous, which was behind the Operation: Payback campaign against the two credit card companies, used Twitter and Facebook to claim responsibility for users being temporarily unable to access visa.com or mastercard.com at midday Wednesday.
On both social media websites, Anonymous promoted Operation: Payback, stating that it was going to crash both credit card websites because they stopped accepting donations for WikiLeaks. The credit card companies stopped doing business with WikiLeaks after that site began releasing thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic documents.
The group said on both Facebook and Twitter that it was using a distributed denial of service attack, also known as a DDOS attack, to bring the two credit card sites down.
DDOS attacks overload a website's servers by sending an inordinate amount of requests for information that results in a site being unable to operate.
By Wednesday afternoon, Anonymous said on its Twitter account that its Operation: Payback Facebook page had been suspended.
Shortly thereafter, the Operation: Payback Twitter page was suspended, too. But, by about 4:30, Anonymous had launched a new Twitter account.
Twitter officials could not be reached for comment, but Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes e-mailed this statement:
"We take our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities seriously and react quickly to reports of inappropriate or illegal content and behavior. In this case, we removed a page because it was promoting a DDOS attack.
"Additional point: The WikiLeaks page on Facebook does not violate our policies and remains up. We haven't received any official requests to disable it, nor any notification that the articles posted on the page contain unlawful content."

Operation Payback fails to take down Amazon in WikiLeaks revenge attack

'Hacktivist' group Anonymous, linked to message board 4chan, follows online assaults against MasterCard and PayPal websites

Operation payback activists Anonymous attacked Amazon.com in retaliation for its stance on WikiLeaks. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

The transient group of online activists crippling websites in "revenge" for cutting off ties with WikiLeaks today attempted its most audacious attack yet – and failed.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, was the prime target for a takedown effort coordinated by Anonymous, the increasingly fractious and vitriolic group behind this week's attacks on sites including PayPal and Mastercard.
But infighting and arguments drove the group into a dramatic switch of targets just moments before Amazon was due to be hit by a "denial of service" attack early this evening. Instead the cabal of hackers, mostly teenagers, directed their ire at the US online payment firm Paypal.
Their aim was to freeze payment system for third parties – but signs were it failed except briefly in different countries.
By initially targeting Amazon, Anonymous made its greatest show of defiance in its days-old campaign in support of WikiLeaks – which does not endorse or direct its actions. Hours earlier, Facebook and Twitter had separately suspended accounts representing it. Facebook cited its encouragement of the attack, which would be illegal in many countries, including the UK. Twitter is believed to have closed an account that posted a stolen list of Mastercard credit cards with owner details.
A member of Anonymous, who wishes only to be know by his online pseudonym Coldblood, told the Guardian that the group's campaign would go on "for a while, mainly just because of how successful the attacks have been."
The websites of Mastercard, Visa, the Swedish government and the Swedish prosecution authority have all been brought crashing offline in recent days.
But the unwieldy and confrontational group of activists today showed the first signs of splintering further into dissident groups fighting on different fronts. Even attacks against Anonymous's own organising tools – and WikiLeaks itself – are being dictated and co-ordinated by splinter groups, protesting at the support shown to the whistleblowing site and its founder, Julian Assange.
In a statement claiming to represent the group, Anonymous said its activists were neither "vigilantes" nor terrorists. "The goal is simple: Win the right to keep the internet free of any control from any entity, corporation, or government." But with the group's strategy rapidly becoming as unclear as its membership, that may prove elusive.

Operation Payback Targets Amazon

UPDATE 16:53 GMT A post on the AnonOpsNet Twitter account has confirmed that Anonymous cannot attack Amazon due to a lack of "forces", but that the online retail giant is still a future target.
"Though our final intention is to DDoS Amazon.com, we currently CAN NOT. The target is api.paypal.com, port 443 as shown on the main channel," the post reads.
UPDATE 16:44 GMT Following some confusion as to who the target for Operation Payback should be, AnonOpsNet has tweeted: "Okay, we have changed our target -- the Hive isn't big enough to attack Amazon. NEW TARGET: api.paypal.com. Port: 443. SPREAD THE WORD"

“Online Living Consciousness” Anonymous has directed its Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) towards Amazon’s website and looks set to fire.

In what is certainly the group’s most ambitious attack to date, and buoyed by earlier successes against PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, Operation Payback is gearing up to attack the website of the world’s largest online retailer.

Confrimed in a post on the Op_Payback twitter account, the group said: “TARGET: WWW.AMAZON.COM !!!”

The move marks a significant step up in operations for Anonymous, who, until recently, have not targeted such companies as they tend to be much harder to bring down. But Anonymous appear to be approaching the challenge with no shortage of optimism.

“If we don't take down Amazon, at least they will have an interesting bandwith bill,” AnonOpsNet tweeted.

According to Anonymous, Operation Payback is the codename for a joint effort to “fight against those who seek to misuse the Internet”, typically using distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), and now directed towards “morally corrupt” organisations targeting WikiLeaks.

What is Operation: Payback?

You have the tools, You have the knowledge, and You have no excuse not to fight for your freedom, any way you personally deem appropriate.

HE VOLUNTEER NETWORK OF HACKERS CALLED 'ANONYMOUS' WHICH HAS BROUGHT CHAOS TO THE INTERNET

The hackers targeting Visa and Mastercard work by overwhelming a websites' servers with enormous volumes of traffic, dubbed 'distributed denial-of-service' attack.
Operation: Payback supporters volunteer their computers to become part of a remotely controlled network, called a 'botnet'.
This allows the hackers to disable targeted websites by directing millions of requests for information from multiple sources, making the internet site inaccessible to other users.
Anonymous - the shadowy group behind the attacks - has handed thousands of followers a user-friendly tool to download and join the assault.
'Think of it like a voluntary botnet,' says an installation guide for the tool.
Anyone taking part in the cyber attacks can then claim they have a computer virus if they are accused of participating.
The chances of being arrested for using the tool are said to be 'next to zero' as a result.
If users follow the instructions for the Anonymous botnet, once it is up and running, they are told to: 'Sit back and watch the show.'

Now it's cyber war: Army of hackers target MasterCard and PayPal in revenge for them pulling the plug on WikiLeaks

• Visa, PayPal, Amazon also come under attack through the night
• Card users unable to make online payments for six hours
• 5,000 'hacktivists' believed to be behind electronic onslaught

Computer hackers have sent two of the world’s biggest credit card companies into meltdown in revenge for cutting off payments to the WikiLeaks website.
The attack was launched by a shadowy international group called ‘Anonymous’ which said MasterCard and Visa had been targeted for freezing the account of the whistleblowing site.
The devastating blow to the credit card giants came on one of the busiest online shopping days of the year.
Hackers also targeted online payment system PayPal, Amazon and a Swiss bank over the WikiLeaks row.

Up to 5,000 hackers have combined under the 'Operation Payback' umbrella to target Visa and Mastercard

Yesterday, a six-hour stoppage on the Mastercard secure code system is thought to have affected hundreds of thousands of shoppers worldwide and highlights how vulnerable the world’s computer systems are to attack.
Last night Visa website was also taken down for a period after it came under attack.
It is thought just a few dozen ‘hacktivists’ launched the electronic onslaught, which was taken up by other supporters.

Operation: Payback was formed in September to target groups opposed to internet piracy

The ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attack involved around 2,000 computers bombarding the website’s host computers with requests for information, causing them to crash.
WikiLeaks has been publishing classified U.S. diplomatic cables, to the fury of Washington authorities.
They have lobbied to cut off all support for the website which they are desperate to shut down.
Yesterday a spokesman for Anonymous, calling himself ‘Coldblood’, a 22-year-old computer programmer based in London, said: ‘Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets.
'As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means.
‘We feel that WikiLeaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people versus the government.
‘The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call.’
In a further communique online, Anonymous warned: ‘We will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks, including multibillion-dollar companies such as PayPal.’
The spokesman added that the group’s intention ‘was to be a force for chaotic good’.

Anonymous has previously been linked to attacks on websites belonging to the Church of Scientology and the music industry.

Yesterday’s onslaught was dubbed ‘Operation: Payback’. MasterCard first reported an attack which partially shut down its corporate website Mastercard.com at around 9.30am yesterday.

WikiLeaks founderJulian Assange has been remanded in custody over claims that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women

Initially it said no customers had been affected. But by the evening the attacks had escalated and it is thought hundreds of thousands of online transactions were stopped.
The problem came about when shoppers tried to pay for their purchases and were redirected to a website run by MasterCard called Securecode.
This site was not authorising payments so the transactions could not be completed.
MasterCard declined to confirm that customers had been affected. But in a statement made to a respected website it reportedly said it suffered ‘a service disruption to the MasterCard Directory Server’ and added that ‘customers may still be experiencing intermittent connectivity issues’.
Last night MasterCard said in a statement from its HQ in New York that its systems had not been compromised by ‘a concentrated effort to flood our corporate web site with traffic and slow access’.
It said: ‘We are working to restore normal service levels. There is no impact on our cardholders’ ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally.’

This online retailer took to Facebook to warn customers they might experience problems paying for wine

A screen shot of the Mastercard website showing technical problems yesterday afternoon

A spokesman for Visa said the site experienced 'heavier than normal traffic' and repeated attempts to load the Visa.com and Visa.co.uk sites were met without success.
A PayPal executive admitted the firm stopped processing WikileLeaks' payments after being pressured by the US State Department.

The release of US diplomatic cables has sparked fury in America

Speaking at a conference in Paris, Osama Bedier said: 'State Dept told us these were illegal activities. It was straightforward.'
According to the website TechCrunch, the admission was greeted by a chorus of boos from the audience.
Bedier, a PayPal vice president, added: 'We first comply with regulations around the world making sure that we protect our brand.'
He claimed the State Department branded WikiLeaks illegal on November 27.
John Mueller, PayPal's general counsel, said the attacks did not affect PayPal's stance on WikiLeaks, whose account would 'remain restricted'.
DDoS attacks, which are illegal in the UK, involve overloading a website with high numbers of requests so it stops working.
Anonymous, which openly admits to using DDoS tactics, wrote on its website: 'While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship.
'This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy.
'We will find and will attack those who stand against WikiLeaks and we will support WikiLeaks in everything they need.'
The group's Facebook site, which had attracted more than one million users, was taken offline by the company for violating its terms of use.
The microblogging site Twitter, source of much WikiLeaks support, could become the next target for hackers after Anonymous posted a statement claiming: 'Twitter you're next for censoring WikiLeaks discussion.'
Some supporters accuse Twitter of preventing the term 'WikiLeaks' from appearing on the site's popular trending topics, a claim that Twitter has denied.
The hackers have pledged an 'infowar' on companies that have withdrawn support from WikiLeaks during the past week.
As well as DDoS attacks, Anonymous is helping to create hundreds of mirror sites for WikiLeaks, allowing users to continue to access the website's content via a different server.
WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, 39, has been remanded in custody over claims that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women.
The websites of the Swedish Prosecutor and the lawyer representing the women were attacked yesterday.
Other websites targeted included those of U.S. senator Joe Lieberman, an outspoken critic of WikiLeaks, and Sarah Palin, who said Assange should be hunted like a terrorist.
Have you been affected by the MasterCard cyber attacks? Ring 0207 9386059



Source: Dailymail.co.uk