Digital Playground, one of the world’s biggest pornography websites, has been hacked – and a group has stolen 72,000 email addresses and passwords of site users. The hacker group ‘The Consortium’ – a new ‘face’ in the hacking scene, but reportedly affiliated with Anonymous – says it also has full access to 40,000 credit card details including security codes. 

The group says it will not publish the data, saying, ‘We do this for the love of the game, not for profit.’

‘We will not be releasing or using this data – these people’s only crime was wanting some porn,’ said ‘The Consortium’ via  public post this week.

‘This company has security, that if we didn’t know it was a real business, we would have thought to be a joke – a joke that we found much more amusing than they will.’

Digital Playground is a Californian pornographic movie studio which has a large stable of ‘adult’ stars, and has driven the adoption of technology in pornography, such as hi-def porn films.

It was described as one of the ‘top five’ firms in the business in a report in 2006. 

The hacker group claims that the credit card details are all stored in plain text, rather than in encrypted form – a serious security failure which could leave users of the site open to other hacks.

In the wake of the attack, Digital Playground has reportedly stopped accepting new members.

Graham Cluley of internet security experts Sophos says, ‘The group, appears to have scooped up some 40,000 financial details (including credit card numbers, names, CCV numbers, and expiry dates) as well as the email addresses and passwords of 72,000 users.’

‘In addition to releasing usernames, passwords and credit card details, The Consortium also made freely available some 52 pornographic movies with names such as ‘Babysitters 2′, ‘Sex and Corruption.’

Elite.