WikiLeaks' Swedish servers may be under attack

WikiLeaks' Swedish servers may have come under attack Monday, the head of internet service provider PRQ said, the latest in a series of attacks that have knocked the secret-spilling group across the web.

PRQ's owner Mikael Viborg told The Associated Press that his servers had become non-responsive. While it wasn't immediately clear why, he said it was probably due to a distributed denial of service attack — a technique in which remote computers hijacked by rogue programs jam a website with massive amounts of data.

In a brief tweet to its followers, WikiLeaks said simply that it was having difficulty with its PRQ severs.

"We are investigating cause," the organization said.

WikiLeaks' current website, wikileaks.ch, didn't seem to be affected by the suspected attack. The website has several backups, including some at undisclosed locations outside Sweden, so even a successful attack on the PRQ might not necessarily slow or shut it down.

WikiLeaks has been under intense international scrutiny over its disclosure of a mountain of classified U.S. diplomatic cables. The unprecedented disclosure has embarrassed the American government and prompted U.S. officials to put pressure on the site and its facilitators.

American web companies Amazon.com, Paypal, and EveryDNS have pulled the plug on their relationships with WikiLeaks one after the other. The French government has also promised a crackdown on its web presence there.

Viborg noted that PRQ hasn't disabled its servers or been pressured by law enforcement on the matter. He said that WikiLeaks has actively used the server space since Friday.