Cyber attack on WikiLeaks confirmed

A Swedish company that provides server space to WikiLeaks has confirmed that the group8217;s website was hit by a cyber attack before it leaked thousands of classified US diplomatic cables.

Internet company Bahnhof8217;s chairman Jon Karlung says WikiLeaks didn8217;t use Bahnhof8217;s servers for the documents leak on Sunday but that traces of the attack could be seen on other servers.

Karlung says a distributed denial of service attack started Sunday afternoon Swedish time and stopped in the evening. It was unclear where the attack came from.

Karlung said Monday that such attacks normally use a virus to prompt several computers to call a site simultaneously to overload it. The virus makes it difficult to stop the attack.