French net piracy firm Trident Media Guard (TMG) has been attacked by hacktivists.
The government-appointed company confirmed it had 'temporarily suspended' with the government.
It was employed to track down net pirates and monitor peer-to-peer networks as part of France's efforts to find those guilty of copyright infringements.
France's secretary general of internet piracy Eric Walter said that Hadopi, short for the High Authority for the dissemination of works and the protection of rights, had taken control of Trident Media Guard 'following the leak of IP addresses', according to The Register.
Safend vice president Edy Almer said the attack highlights the risk that data organisations collect for protection purposes can be used against them.
“Organisations must take extra diligence to enable protection of all data, collect only what is absolutely necessary and ensure it is stored in a secure manner," Almer said.
"While no system is perfect, having best of breed security will take you a long way towards avoiding the headlines”.
