The Pirate Bay hacked

A group of hackers has stolen a list of all 1.6 million usernames and passwords for registered users of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.

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Computer Sweden initially reported that the sensitive information was accessed by a group calling itself Angry Young Hackers (Arga Unga Hackare - AUH).

But the group, which first came into the public eye when it defaced the website of Sweden's Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån) in 2005, later denied any involvement in the attack on The Pirate Bay.

Speaking to Computer Sweden, Peter Sunde - one of the people behind the Pirate Bay - explained the source of the problem.

"It was a programming bug. But the hole has been sealed now," he said.

Some hours after the original report, Sunde told the newspaper that The Pirate Bay knew the identity of the hackers and that it was not AUH.

Despite the fact that all of the passwords were encrypted, The Pirate Bay has advised its users to exercise caution.

"We encourage all our users to change passwords as soon as possible - and if you have the same password on the bay as other places, you should update them as well," The Pirate Bay wrote on its blog.

Soon after the security breach, the hackers uploaded a torrent file to The Pirate Bay which they claimed contained the hacked data. But the file was later removed from the site, as The Pirate Bay deemed its description misleading.

"The content was not in keeping with the description," Sunde told Computer Sweden.

AUH first came into the public eye when it defaced the website of Sweden's Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån) in 2005.