Hack Of Gawker Media Sites Puts 1.3 Million Passwords At Risk

Individuals claiming responsibility for attack say they are not affiliated with Anonymous protests over WikiLeaks

Individuals claiming to be part of the hacker group Gnosis are contacting the press to explain their attacks on the popular Gawker Media sites during the past 24 hours.
According to a
report
in the publication Mediaite, a member of Gnosis says his groups attacks have nothing to do with the group Anonymous, which has been launching DDoS attacks on major websites in protest over the treatment of WikiLeaks.
The writer says Gnosis has retrieved some 274,000 passwords of the nearly 1.3 million that reside in Gawkers extensive database. The group published an article on Gawker that contains a link to the compromised code, and it has reportedly sent samples of unhashed user data to some media.
But the attack has nothing to do with WikiLeaks, according to the writer. It was initiated primarily because of the arrogance displayed by Gawker administrators who were talking about WikiLeaks and suggested hackers should bring it on.
We went after Gawker because of their outright arrogance. It took us a few hours to find a way to dump all their source code and a bit longer to find a way into their database, the writer reportedly told Mediaite. I mean, if you say things like [bring it on] and attack sites like [Anonymous], which we are not affiliated to, you must at least have the means to back yourself up. We considered what action we would take, and decided that the Gawkmedia empire needs to be brought down a peg or two. Our groups mission? We don’t have one.
The writer says Gnosis intends the attack, in part, as a lesson on security.
Gawkmedia has possibly the worst security I have ever seen, the writer says. It is scary how poor it is. Their servers run horribly outdated kernel versions, their site is filled with numerous exploitable code, and their database is publicly accessible.
Gnosis has promised to publish full source code to the Gawker Media site, as well as a database dump and a document describing the sites security failings.
Gawker Media reportedly has told users they should change their passwords.
Have a comment on this story? Please click Discuss below. If youd like to contact
Dark Readings
editors directly,
send us a message
.

Last News
▸ ArcSight prepares for future at user conference post HP acquisition. ◂ Discovered: 07/01/2025 Category: security	▸ Samsung Epic 4G: First To Use Media Hub ◂ Discovered: 07/01/2025 Category: security	▸ Many third-party software fails security tests ◂ Discovered: 07/01/2025 Category: security

**Cyber Security Categories**
Google Dorks Database	Exploits Vulnerability	Exploit Shellcodes

CVE List

Tools/Apps

News/Aarticles

Phishing Database

Deepfake Detection

Trends/Statistics & Live Infos

Tags:
Hack Of Gawker Media Sites Puts 1.3 Million Passwords At Risk