Visa (NYSE:V), PayPal (Nasdaq:EBAY) Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN), Mastercard (NYSE:MA) Attacks from Wikileaks Supporters Makes Everyone Nervous

Cyber attacks by supporters of Julian Assange and Wikileaks have been attacking companies like Visa (NYSE:V), PayPal (Nasdaq:EBAY) Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) and Mastercard (NYSE:MA) who distanced themselves from Wikileaks in various ways.

Some of the louder voices have called for a boycott of Amazon.com in response to them removing Wikileaks from their servers.

Commenting on the effect on Mastercard, Canaccord said this, 'The world’s second-biggest payments network came under fire yesterday: according to various media reports, MasterCard’s online service was briefly interrupted in a denial-of-service (DOS) attack orchestrated by the hacking group as 'Anonymous,' as well as users of 4Chan, a network of uncensored message boards. “The issue appears to be the result of a concentrated effort to flood our corporate Website with traffic and slow access,” said James Issokson, a spokesman for MasterCard. He emphasized the company’s systems hadn’t been compromised and that “there is no impact on our cardholders’ ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally”. The attack, dubbed 'Operation Payback,' comes a day after Mastercard – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website that has been in the limelight. Mastercard was following Visa, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder Julian Assange in the last few days. The companies have justified their decision to stop donations on the grounds that WikiLeaks is acting 'illegally.'”

Being the busiest season for all the parties involved, other than Amazon, the rest closed Thursday's trading session up.

Mastercard ended the day at $251.22, up $0.58, or 0.23 percent. Amazon.com closed at $174.85, down $1.44, or 0.82 percent. eBay ended at $30.35, up $0.20, or 0.66 percent. Visa closed at $79.12, up $1.18, or 1.51 percent.