FBI issues warrants over pro-WikiLeaks attacks

Lance Whitney

 
FBI agents yesterday executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States as part of their ongoing investigation. Pointing to the group Anonymous, which has taken responsibility for the attacks, the FBI said that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults were facilitated by software the group makes available as free downloads.

Late last year, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other companies were hit by DDoS attacks triggered by activists in support of WikiLeaks after the companies cut off sources of funding to the whistle-blowing site.

The FBI apparently started its investigation after it was contacted by PayPal in December and was able to trace two of the IP addresses provided by PayPal to physical locations, one of which was in Texas where the agency seized a server. news.cnet.com