June 29, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team
It seems that anywhere hackers want to go, they’ll go. No website, ecommerce solution, or database is truly secure against the hacking collective Anonymous (along with some members of the now-disbanded LulzSec hacker group). Their latest target was the main public-facing site of MasterCard. The world’s second largest consumer payment processing service experienced a substantial service outage on Tuesday in the wake of the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack that the hackers had unleashed.
Now, the DDoS didn’t give the hackers access to any sensitive financial information (as was feared in the multiple recent attacks that targeted Sony and their online gaming ecommerce solution). A DDoS attack just overwhelms servers in one of a variety of ways. The end result is the same: the site is down, sending a powerful message to the target.
In this case, the hackers chose to make their message explicit as well as implicit, Tweeting the following:
“thats what you get when you mess with @wikileaks @Anon_Central and the enter [sic] community of lulz loving individuals.”
See, these people aren’t just hacking for the sake of hacking. They’re increasingly being referred to as “hacktivists” – hackers with a purpose. In this case, they were defying MasterCard’s blocking of all donations over their payment network. The same network that MasterCard usually uses to process payment for ecommerce solutions and other payment gateways, was closed to charitable donations for Wikileaks.
On the surface, this seems like a simple business matter: MasterCard, a private business, decided not to use their hardware and software to support Wikileaks, a non-governmental organization that MasterCard may or may not agree with. As MasterCard is based in the US, one might reasonably hope that they would hold with this nation’s devotion to free speech, but their decision to hold back their systems would seem, on the surface to be not a public issue, but a private one.
It’s not that simple in the minds of Wikileaks. According to them:
“Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized. The attack has blocked over 90 percent of the nonprofit organization’s donations, costing some $15 million in lost revenue. The attack is entirely outside of any due process or rule of law.”
It’s worth pointing out that MasterCard wasn’t the only organization to block Wikileaks donations. The information-distribution site also blamed companies like Visa, Bank of America, and PayPal Inc. for cutting them off as well. Whether you agree with Wikileaks, or the banking companies, or the hackers, this latest attack is a demonstration of just how powerful these hidden groups can be. Either way, their activities, politically-motivated and lacking in financial gain, carry stiff penalties should any more of them be captured.
Jack Cieslak grew up in New York State where he attended the New School, emerging with a degree in Creative Writing. Seattle drew him in with its focus on personal health and fitness, as well as the environment, and of course the great weather. Three-thousand miles later he is all dug in and ready to throw himself wholeheartedly into writing of all types - including reporting new developments in e-commerce, and places where social media and e-commerce cross paths. Jack revels in a challenge, whether it's writing, running, or lifting heavy objects - Jack says "bring it."
