Gawker website hacked for six months

LONDON, UK: Hackers who broke into the Gawker Media database, gaining access to thousands of users' passwords, had access to the site for a period of six months, far more than what Gawker had earlier revealed.

Gawker, which runs a series of irreverent blogs on media, technology and gossip, revealed earlier this month that its database had been hacked and urged users to change their passwords.

At the time, Gawker claimed that hackers had access to the database for a "few weeks" but sources linked to the hacking group Gnosis, which carried out the attack, disputed the claim.

They told the Guardian newspaper that they had access for around six months, the Telegraph reports.

Gnosis later posted Gawker's entire database of 1.3 million usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords online. A significant number of those passwords were then cracked.

It is thought that Gawker was targeted because its blogs had been critical of 4chan, the web forum notorious for its mischief making and pranks.

Anonymous, the hacking group that recently carried out a wave of online attacks in support of WikiLeaks, has also been linked to 4chan.

Anonymous claimed responsibility for attacks targeting PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and PostFinance, a Swiss bank, as part of "Operation Payback" which targeted companies that had taken action against WikiLeaks.