( WIRED ) -- Gawker Media , the blog powerhouse built by Nick Denton , has been hacked . After bringing the company 's websites to a standstill Sunday , one or more hackers operating under the name Gnosis released a 500 MB file apparently containing Gawker 's source code , commenter and staff passwords , and internal conversations between the company 's employees . The email addresses and passwords of hundreds of thousands of Gawker users have been compromised , the hackers said . It 's the worst security breach in New York-based Gawker 's eight-year history , and a wake-up call to all web publishers . `` We 're deeply embarrassed by this breach , '' Gawker said in a blog post Sunday afternoon . The attack included Gawker 's eponymous flagship property , as well as gadget site Gizmodo and the culture site Jezebel . The successful Gawker hack followed a week of escalating attacks in the wake of Wikileaks 's continued release of U.S. State Dept . documents and counter-attacks by hackers associated with group known as Anonymous , which has staged a campaign called Operation Payback . Over the last year , Gawker has been covering , with its trademark disdain , the antics of the 4Chan message board , leading 4Chan users to attack the site with denial-of-service attacks in July . That 's the same tactic being used against Visa.com , Paypal.com and Mastercard.com for those companies ' decisions to cut-off the ability to donate to Wikileaks . But the latest attack is much more serious than a typical denial-of-service attack . Gawker 's attackers managed to infiltrate the company 's content management system ( CMS ) , user database , and internal communications system . The hackers then published a raw file containing that information . Gnosis took pains to say , in the uploaded file , that they were not 4Chan , even as they gave a shout-out to it , along with Anonymous . 4chan can only be described as one of the most obnoxious ( and sometimes hilarious ) corners of the net , but it 's not a place where the most sophisticated hackers generally congregate . Still , Gnosis 's choice of targets and their foul language puts them firmly in the net 's `` griefer '' culture . A 500MB file containing thousands of Gawker user IDs , passwords and email addresses was easily available Sunday night . Some of the email addresses and passwords in the file appear to correspond to several prominent current and former Gawker employees . The source code to Gawker 's website was also released , according to the hackers , as were internal chat communications among Gawker employees . Gawker seems to have regained control of their servers , and are advising readers to change their passwords . However , the real threat is for those readers who use the same password at Gawker that they do for other online services , since the hackers and others are at work breaking the outdated encryption Gawker used to store the passwords . Quite a few have already been broken . WIRED : Vigilantes take offensive in WikiLeaks censorship battle . Anyone who has set up up an account to comment on Gawker is advised to change their passwords as soon as possible . Gnosis made clear its disdain for Gawker in the leaked file . `` F*** you gawker , hows this for 'script kids ? ' '' the hacker wrote . `` Your empire has been compromised , Your servers , Your database 's , Online accounts and source code have all be ripped to shreds ! You wanted attention , well guess what , You 've got it now ! '' The file , which also includes information about Gawker 's upcoming re-design , was being shared by dozens of people via file-sharing protocol bittorrent Sunday night . The hacker wrapped up the data dump with the following message . `` You would think a site that likes to mock people , such as gawker , would have better security and actually have a clue what they are doing . But as we 've proven , those who think they are beyond our reach are n't as safe as they would like to think ! '' Subscribe to WIRED magazine for less than $ 1 an issue and get a FREE GIFT ! Click here ! Copyright 2011 Wired.com .
Hackers release file containing Gawker 's source code , commenter and staff passwords . Comment: Hackers part of group Anonymous , who 's campaign is called Operation Payback .