The hacker social network 4chan and the anti-copyright law coalition Operation Payback are engaged in a flurry of distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) in retaliation for any actions they deem intended to limit WikiLeaks operations.
Operation Payback had previously took credit for distributed denial of service attacks on PayPal and PostFinance, and 4chan has been engaged in a DDoS row with rival network Tumblr.
MasterCard is being targeted for refusing to process payments to the rogue whistle-blower organization WikiLeaks.
PayPal's blog suffered from downtime after they announced they were suspending the WikiLeaks fund-raising account, then Post Finance was targeted for suspending the main leagal defense bank account for Julian Assange, now in custody awaiting extradition on charges unrelated to the WikiLeaks disclosure of classified U.S. documents.
A message on the 4chan forums indicates that the next target is Twitter, who has been accused of lightly censoring WikiLeaks Tweets by not displaying the topic as one of the most popular in their "Trends" section.
The onslaught of DDoS attacks was serious enough for State Department spokesman PJ Crowley to Tweet that the U.S is not apply pressure to companies like PayPal to cut ties with WikiLeaks.