Bank of America Severs Wikileaks Affiliation

In recent weeks, corporations associated with Wikileaks have had to make the difficult decision of whether or not to sever all ties with the organization, and if so, face the potential of backlash on their own companies, including distributed denial of service attacks.

Bank of America is the latest to join the list of financial and technology companies that have cut off services to Wikileaks, but their decision might have been made with the knowledge that Wikileaks is prepared to release confidential and likely scandalous information about the institution.

Two Sides to the Story

The official statement from the Bank of America reads as follows:

"Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for Wikileaks. This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that Wikileaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments." (Source: forbes.com)

Wikileaks, however, retorted with the cryptic tweet: "Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advice is to place your funds somewhere safer."

It's not known if the post is a threat or a comment on the way Bank of America does business.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told CNBC that Wikileaks would soon release information "about banks" that would show "unethical practices". While no bank was specified, in an earlier interview Assange told IDG News Service, "We are sitting on 5GB [of data] from Bank of America; one of the executive's hard drives". (Source: computerworld.com)

Bank of America's Move Called Into Question

If it proves true that Wikileaks does indeed hold classified information about Bank of America, the motivation for other major corporations severing ties with Wikileaks will surely be called into question.

Amid the controversy, Amazon Web Services (AWS) booted Wikileaks from its servers for "breaking rules about content that could injure others," while PayPal, MasterCard and Visa Europe all put an end to their payment features. Whether Wikileaks holds classified information over these corporations as well remains unknown.

Like all of the other financial institutions that have declined services to Wikileaks, it's expected Bank of America will be hit with a 'fax bomb' attack in the near future, unless security officials can intervene and put an end to retaliations from pro-Wikileaks activists.