Hackers 'Shut Down' MasterCard Website

Hackers forced down the website of the international credit card service, MasterCard, on Wednesday. The move is likely to be an apparent revenge by alleged Wikileaks supporters. In what they called Operation: Payback, the anonymous hackers announced on twitter that they successfully brought down the MasterCard website with DDoS attacks. MasterCard had earlier severed ties with the whistle-blower site, suspending all payments to the organization. The website currently remains inaccessible.

On Wednesday, one user under the pseudo name of Anon_Operation, tweeted, WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT'S CONFIRMED! #ddos #wikileaks Operation:Payback(is a bitch!) #PAYBACK.

Announcing the termination of service, MasterCard spokesman Chris Monteiro said on Tuesday that the company's rules 'prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal'.

Meanwhile, the website of the Swedish prosecutor's office pursuing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was also temporarily shut down by hackers. The website aklagare.se remained unreachable for several hours. The hackers group also reportdsly attacked the website of Swiss bank, PostFinance, for freezing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account.

Target: postfinance.ch :: Grab your weapon and its settings: FIRE NOW! said one tweet on Anon_Operation. The Swiss bank closed Assange's account caliming that the 39-year-old Australian had given false information on his address, which is in violation of banking and money laundering rules.