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After widespread condemnation of the data-releasing group Wikileaks, hacker activists retaliated by going after the businesses and governments seen as unsupportive of Wikileaks’ mission.

The online feud, which has been characterized as everything from a skirmish to an all-out cyberwar, is a high-profile example of how the online climate is changing. It also highlights the vulnerabilities cities face.

“There are many threats, and it’s a constant, ongoing harassment that we have to deal with,” said Honolulu Information Technology Director Gordon Bruce. “We’ve spent probably close to $3 million in grant monies in the past two years. It’s phenomenal. We’ve probably got another couple of million more to spend. We’re always chasing (the threat) because it’s always something new.”

Just Wednesday morning, Bruce received a security warning from Microsoft that meant his team would have to update thousands of computers as soon as possible.

“It was a page of all new vulnerabilities that were found,” Bruce said. “I’ve got staff out modifying 7,000 PCs. We have to send out the code, make the system get upgraded.”

When he wanted to make an Apple iPad compatible for city use, he said it took weeks to ensure its introduction wouldn’t compromise security.

“My staff spent almost a month to secure the iPad to bring it onto the network,” Bruce said. “A whole bunch of things had to be revisited.”

All of this is what Bruce describes as a part of the “new climate” online. To him, the aftermath of Wikileaks’ most recent data release launched a “battle.” Indeed, those who retaliated on behalf of Wikileaks successfully crippled websites for MasterCard and Visa.

“The peripheral damage that’s happened as a result of what these entities are doing is remarkable,” Bruce said. “These entities — I don’t even want to call them organizations because people can just pick a team and do their own independent hack, and say ‘I’m part of the pro-Wikileaks guys, and I am going to do whatever I feel like doing in their name.'”

The group that hacked into Gawker’s website exposed passwords and e-mail addresses for more than a million site users, including an unknown number of government workers from cities and state across the country and agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and NASA. As modern life shifts more and more online, Bruce says hackers become every more creative.

“You’ve got the ones who are doing it because they just want to be able to do it. You’ve got the ones who believe they really do have a malicious, illegal intent,” Bruce said. “Then you’ve got the power-trips. They want to bring down systems to be disruptive. I think we’re going to see more of that.”

This brand of “hacktivism” is a way for people to attack online networks as a means of protesting against the entities they represent.

“It’s another way to protest,” Bruce said. “You don’t have to get on a plane or get on a bus to drive to a protest site. You can do it from the comfort of your own home. It’s a whole new battlefield. Cities, states, counties, businesses. Look what they did! They shook the knees of Visa and MasterCard and PayPal. That was pretty remarkable.”

People like Bruce are working across the globe to shore up Internet systems. Bruce said Microsoft is working on a new version of Internet Explorer that limits users’ access to the web, but better protects users from hackers. The FBI is probing the attack on Gawker. Off-line, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is at the center of a trial that’s in the international spotlight. For now, he’s cautiously optimistic about Honolulu’s vulnerabilities.

“I’m confident that we’re addressing it,” Bruce said. “But I think anyone would be foolish to say, ‘Oh, I have no worries.’ I don’t know what new attack will come out within the next half hour.”