LulzSec hacks The Sun, claiming Rupert Murdoch is dead
Hacker collective LulzSec has returned. Yesterday, the group hacked The Sun's website, redirecting visitors to a fake version of the site and falsely reporting that Rupert Murdoch had been found dead.
LulzSec is back in action. The mysterious hacker collective that pinched data from Sony websites and even breached the FBI's defences has hacked into The Sun's website, redirecting visitors to an imitation website that claimed media mogul Rupert Murdoch had been found dead.
LulzSec tweeted throughout the whole affair, later redirecting visitors to The Sun's website to its own Twitter feed, where it tweeted: 'Hello, everyone that wanted to visit The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good!' LulzSec later tweeted: 'We have joy, we have fun, we have messed up Murdoch's Sun.'
The fake version of The Sun website featured a false story that claimed Murdoch had been found dead, 'having ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden'.
Prominent LulzSec member AnonymouSabu also tweeted that the group was 'sitting on' The Sun and The News of the World emails, as well as News International employees' email addresses, passwords and mobile numbers. AnonymouSabu promised that a press release would emerge sometime today.
News International's website and the The Times site, also owned by Murdoch, are currently down. The Guardian reckons that's a precautionary measure against those sites being hacked as well. Nevertheless, LulzSec also tweeted that it 'sailed over to News International and wrecked them too'.
The Guardian reckons that the hackers breached The Sun's defences via a 'retired' server for one of News International's micro-sites, used for small or unimportant stories. Once they were into the website's back end, they placed a line of JavaScript in The Sun's 'breaking news' tool so that people visiting the site would be redirected to anywhere the hackers wished.
LulzSec recently announced that it was quitting the hacking game. Previous targets included Nintendo and Sony Pictures.
We'll have to wait and see whether email archives get released later today along with the press release. In the meantime, let us know what you think about this latest bout of hackery in the comments section below, or on our Facebook page.
Image credit: ZDNet.com