The United Nations is investigating how one of its servers was hacked into yesterday, resulting in some of its members’ email addresses and passwords being posted online.

A group of hackers known as Teampoison gained access to the login details of over 100 members of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and posted them on the web (pictured above).

However, the United Nations has claimed that the details were stored on an old server and the accounts were inactive.

Sausan Ghosheh, a spokesperson for the UNDP, told the BBC that this was the only breach.

She said: “The UNDP found [the] compromised server and took it offline. The server goes back to 2007. There are no active passwords listed for those accounts. Please note that UNDP.org was not compromised.

“UNDP is taking action to close any vulnerabilities on our website.”

As well as members of the UNDP, some of details accessed and published by Teampoison included those of members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UK's Office for National Statistics.

The motive for the hacking, Teampoison stated in a PasteBin posting, is the UN’s role as “overseer of many atrocities from Rwanda to Darfur.” The organisation, the statement said, “has become a beast that must be stopped or tamed.”

Discussing the incident, the security firm Sophos said: “The gang noted that some of the user IDs appeared to have a blank password, news which will make many a system administrator groan and roll their eyes in exasperation.”

The hacking comes one day after Teampoison – who claimed responsibility for hacking Research In Motion website in the aftermath of the London riots and for exposing private details about the former Prime Minister Tony Blair – announced that it was joining forces with fellow ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous in operation ‘Robin Hood’. Together they will target banks in a bid to return money to the disenfranchised majority.

A joint announcement from the hacker groups said: “Operation Robin Hood is going to return the money to those who have been cheated by our system and most importantly to those hurt by our banks. Operation Robin Hood will take credit cards and donate to the 99 per cent as well as various charities around the globe. The banks will be forced to reimburse the people their money back.”