Visa and Mastercard have both experienced denial of service (DOS) attacks against their websites in retribution for the WikiLeaks situation that has dominated the recent news. This began with DOS attacks against WikiLeaks in an attempt to block access to the controversial material they were attempting to distribute. Credit card companies have stopped selling their services to WikiLeaks which has generated attacks aimed at their sites.
Is this one of the first very visible examples of cyberwar and if so, what can we expect now that engagement has begun? Share your thoughts.
Comments
I would not go so far as to call it the first visible example. In 2009, several federal web sites experienced DDOS attacks (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530560,00.html) and in late 2009/early 2010 Google, along with other businesses such as Yahoo and Symantec, were attacked (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300359.html). Both of these incidents were widely publicized in the media. Business and government web sites and computing assets are being attacked daily, it is only when critical information, systems, or services are compromised that something might be reported.
The only reason the Wikileaks attacks, as well as the attacks on services like Visa, Mastercard and others are getting so much media attention is because of what Wikileaks is, a whistle blower site which might have gone too far by publishing certain sensitive data. Before Wikileaks started publishing war documents, diaries, and secret communications it barely warranted this much attention.