A group of hackers has defaced BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion’s official blog, threatening to pass a database containing employee details to rioters if it co-operates with police investaging the disturbances in London.

RIM confirmed earlier that it would co-operate with police, following reports that its BBM messaging services is being used to co-ordinate riots. The hacking group, which calls itself Team Poison, posted a messaging the official RIM blog warning RIM against doing so.

"Dear Rim; You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all, the Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment…," the defacing statement read.

"If you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerryMessengers you will regret it, we have access to your database which includes your employees information; e.g – Addresses, Names, Phone Numbers etc. – now if u assist the police, we _WILL_ make this information public and pass it onto rioters…"

The blog is now offline, but a screen grab of the defaced page can be seen here.

Information Age has contacted RIM for comment.