Whitehall departments are on high alert after warnings that internet hackers are set to target government websites in the latest stage of the Wikileaks saga.
The UK government could be targeted if the website's controversial founder Julian Assange is extradited from Britain to Sweden where he is wanted on allegations of rape. Computer hackers who support Mr Assange have already targeted the websites of Amazon, PayPal and credit card firms. They could repeat a co-ordinated barrage of messages which overload computer servers and bring sites down, known as a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.
