WikiLeaks website pulled 'amid cyber attacks'
WikiLeaks’ domain name system provider says it has withdrawn service to the wikileaks.org name after apparent attacks on its website.
WikiLeaks responded to the move from EveryDNS by moving to a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch.
EveryDNS says it dropped the website late Thursday after it became the “target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks”.
The American provider says in a statement that the attacks have threatened the stability of its infrastructure.
EveryDNS said in a statement that it dropped the website late on Thursday because the hacker attacks threatened the rest of its network.
“Wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure,” it said in a statement. EveryDNS provides access to 500,000 websites.
WikiLeaks confirmed the drop on its Twitter account, saying: “WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks.”
WikiLeaks has angered the US and other governments by publishing almost half a million secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest batch contains thousands of classified US diplomatic cables.
On Wednesday, Amazon.com – which had provided WikiLeaks with use of its servers to distribute embarrassing State Department communications and other documents - evicted it. The site remains on servers of a Swedish host, Bahnhof.
The ousting from Amazon came after congressional staff questioned the company about its relationship with WikiLeaks. Senator Joe Lieberman praised Amazon’s action and said it should “set the standard” for companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute “illegally seized material”.
In addition to the latest batch of sensitive documents, WikiLeaks has angered the US and other governments by publishing almost half a million secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is not clear how WikiLeaks obtained the diplomatic documents, but the US government’s prime suspect is an Army private, Bradley Manning, who is in custody on charges of leaking other classified documents to WikiLeaks.
The founder of WikiLeaks, 39-year old Australian Julian Assange, has been out of public sight for nearly a month.
Sweden has issued a Europe-wide arrest warrant for him over allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
The exact nature of the allegations is still unclear. Mr Assange’s Swedish and British lawyers claim their client has attempted to assist in the questioning but that his offers have so far been turned down. According to his lawyers, he has also yet to receive formal notice of the allegations.
An American defence official has also indicated that US government lawyers are investigating whether Mr Assange can be prosecuted for spying. He is also risks legal action in his homeland, where Australia’s Attorney General Robert McClelland has said Australia would detain him if possible in response to the warrant filed in the Swedish case by Interpol.
