If you’ve got an account on Gawker.com or any of its sister sites (Kotaku, Gizmodo, Deadspin and Jezebel among others), you’ll probably want to change your passwords because anonymous hackers have swiped usernames, email addresses and passwords and made them available via a torrent file. And by change your password, we potentially mean all of them. Now.

Because the hackers have been able to decrypt passwords used on the Gawker network, you may be at risk on other sites if you’ve used the same user name and password on those sites. This includes sites like Twitter, Facebook and, yes, Consumerist.

When Consumerist left the Gawker network, passwords were not brought over, and all users were asked to reset their passwords in order to post comments here. However, if you reset your password to the same one you used on Gawker, you should change it here as well.

To change your password, click on your user name in the upper right corner of the page, then go to “Edit My Profile.”

From a Gawker post lamenting the incident:

Our user databases appear to have been compromised. The passwords were encrypted. But simple ones may be vulnerable to a brute-force attack. You should change your Gawker password and on any other sites on which you’ve used the same passwords.

We’re deeply embarrassed by this breach. We should not be in the position of relying on the goodwill of the hackers who identified the weakness in our systems. And, yes, the irony is not lost on us.

Anonymous Hacks Gawker Media Properties in Support of WikiLeaks? [Village Voice via Slashdot]

Commenting Accounts Compromised — Change Your Passwords [Gawker]

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