Visa was getting it from both barrels today, with threats of both legal action and electronic warfare made against the company. WikiLeaks' Icelandic payment processor, DataCell, announced that it was going to sue the credit card network after it cut off donations made to WikiLeaks, and the hacking group Anonymous said that it would start targetting Visa websites as part of its ongoing denial-of-service campaign against corporations believed to be hindering WikiLeaks' operations.

Visa Europe said that it was suspending the processing of payments to WikiLeaks pending an investigation to ascertain whether the whistleblowing site was breaking the company's rules. MasterCard has gone further, and said that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products, as the company's rules prohibit customers from "directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal." Though DataCell is hurt by both Visa and MasterCard's actions, the company's statement suggests that it is taking legal action only against Visa.

Meanwhile, Operation Payback, the program denial of service attacks aimed at anti-WikiLeaks organizations, is continuing unabated. Today, the primary targets of attack have been MasterCard and Visa. For much of the day, MasterCard's website was unavailable, leading to problems for online retailers dependent on the company's SecureCode system for protecting online transactions; it is now back up, sporting a small message to assure customers that no data has been jeopardized. The focus of the attacks has now been switched to Visa's site, which is inaccessible at the time of writing.

It hasn't been all good news for the Anonymous hordes, however; Operation Payback's homepage is still inaccessible after being on the receiving end of a denial of service attack of its own. The group's Facebook fan page was also deactivated for a terms of use violation.