Wikileaks Hacked By “Very Skilled” Attackers Prior To Iraq Doc Release

Via Fobes.com (Firewall Blog) -

Someone is trying to spring a leak in Wikileaks.

As the whistle-blower organization prepared earlier this week for a Saturday press conference that some believe will announce a major release of secret data regarding the Iraq war, a staffer wrote Wednesday on the organization’s twitter feed that its “communications infrastructure is currently under attack,” adding the cryptic message “Project BO move to coms channel S. Activate Reston5.”

A Wikileaks source who asks to remain anonymous now says that the organization’s XMPP server in Amsterdam, used to host its encrypted instant messaging communications, was compromised earlier this week by an unknown attacker, and the chat service had to be relocated to another server in Germany. “The server got attacked, hacked, and the private keys got out,” says the source. “We needed new private keys. Now it’s back online and secure.”

The source added that the attack represented the first breach in Wikileaks’ history, and that “the people who are behind it are very skilled,” declining to comment further on the details of the hack.

[...]

Aside from digital sabotage, the site has also faced financial sniping. Wikileaks had one of its accounts frozen by the donation-collecting company Moneybookers, and claims the freeze was a result of the organization being placed on a U.S. government watchlist and an Australian government blacklist.

F0r whatever reason, the organization’s administrator have their guard up. On Tuesday, the site’s twitter feed recommended that followers copy the encrypted “insurance” file that it posted to the site in July.

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WikiLeaks’ 400,000 Iraq War Documents Reveal Torture, Civilian Deaths
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/wikileaks-press/

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/

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For the Iraq War Logs, Wikileaks used a reverse approach to redaction (basically whitelisting). Everything in all reports was deemed harmful and redacted until proven otherwise, according to WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson.