Gawker's database of 1.5 million usernames, emails, and passwords has been hacked after it claimed that it was “not afraid” of the hackers at 4Chan.

Gawker has admitted that its databases appear to have been compromised. Passwords stored on the site were encrypted but simple ones may be vulnerable to a brute-force attack. It is recommending that users change their passwords on the Gawker GED/commenting system and on any other sites on which you've used the same passwords. Readers should also change their company email password and any passwords that might have appeared in email messages.

The site said that it was “deeply embarrassed by this breach". An unknown and unverified source said in a note to Mediaite that the hack was motivated by Gawker's haughty behaviour.

"We went after Gawker because of their outright arrogance," the source said. "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 source said that it had found a conversation in Gawker's Campfire logs in which Gawker staff said that they were "not afraid of 4chan."