NEW YORK (AP) — Gawker Media is urging subscribers to change their passwords because someone has managed to hack into the company’s user database.
The company, which runs irreverent blogs on media, technology and other issues, said in a posting on its website Sunday that the commenting passwords used on the sites were encrypted, but simple ones could be vulnerable.
The company also said passwords on other sites should be changed if they were the same as the ones stored by Gawker Media.
“We’re deeply embarrassed by this breach,” the posting on gawker.com said. “We should not be in the position of relying on the goodwill of the hackers who identified the weakness in our systems.”
Millions of people are likely affected by the breach because of the popularity of Gawker’s sites such as Gizmodo, a tech gadget news site, said Rich Mogull, CEO of Phoenix-based Securosis, a security research firm.
The damage should be minimal, though, because Gawker probably stored only e-mails, user names and passwords, Mogull said. The problem comes if people use the same passwords on other sites, such as online banking. The hackers likely were able to figure out passwords even though they were protected on the Gawker site by a simple algorithm, and could use them to access bank accounts.
