The BBC has been attacked by a Russian cyber criminal who tried to sell access to the broadcaster's servers to hackers, a security company has claimed.
A criminal known as "Hash" or "Revolver" was advertising access to the UK's public service broadcaster on Christmas day, said Hold Security, a US cyber security company.
The alleged access was to a site "ftp.bbc.co.uk", the use of which is not known, but "ftp systems" usually enable large transfers of data over the internet.
The BBC said it did not comment on security issues.
Alex Holden, chief information security officer at Hold Security, said the BBC might have been targeted because of the "international recognition" of the brand.
The attack could have allowed the hackers to take down the news website, access data or other areas of BBC infrastructure.
"Most likely it is potentially a notch on someone's belt in the hacker community," he said.
"It is such a high-profile site. Maybe it will give them exposure through a media stunt or quite possibly allow a criminal enterprise to send out spam or malicious attacks from a legitimate server."
The BBC should be able to change the credentials allowing access to the site relatively easily, but Mr Holden warned it might take time to assess the extent of the damage.
The BBC is the latest media organisation to be attacked by cyber criminals, at the end of a year in which the Associated Press Twitter account was hacked, the New York Times website taken down, and the Financial Times targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army, supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The attack also highlights the growth of the black market in passwords and vulnerabilities which has allowed criminals without the necessary computer skills to buy their way into cyber crime.
Mr Holden said the advertisement for the BBC site credentials did not have a price tag but so-called "exploits" were sold for anything from $200 to tens of thousands of dollars.
He said there had been "steady growth" of exploits for years, fuelled by a "quite big marketplace".
Companies are increasingly being targeted by hackers trying to gain access to their intellectual property.
The head of a leading security software provider warned last month that intellectual property theft was a greater cyber security threat than cyber war and malicious attacks from rogue hackers. Steve Bennett, chief executive of Symantec, said western companies were among those using cyber attacks to steal confidential data.
Additional reporting by Henry Mance
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