Anonymous, LulzSec Deface The Sun Web Site
The Sun e-mail
In their latest act, hackers from the loose-knit global collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for defacing The Sun’s Web site by redirecting visitors to a phony homepage that claimed that News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch had died of a drug overdose in his garden.
In a Twitter post, a hacker known as Sabu claimed that Anonymous had also successfully broke into the e-mails of The Sunand its now defunct sister paper, News Of The World, and would likely release them soon. “Sun/News of the world OWNED. We’re sitting on their emails. Press release tomorrow,” Sabu said in a Twitter post.
Meanwhile, hacker group LulzSec, a spinoff of its parent collective, Anonymous, appeared to have risen from the dead to echo “We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days,” the group said in a Twitter post.
LulzSec continued the pranks on The Sun’s Web site Monday by redirecting visitors to its Twitter feed.
“TheSun.co.uk now redirects to our twitter feed. Hello, everyone that wanted to visit The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good!,’ said one Twitter post, while another said “Don't be a #peon like the others. We are showing you a very small surface; the real damage is currently giving the (Sun’s) admins heart attacks. ;)”
Hacker group LulzSec ravaged governments and corporations alike in May and June during a 50-day hacking spree aimed at high-profile targets such as Sony , the CIA and the U.S. Senate .
The recently reinvigorated News Corp. hacking frenzy follows after the resignation and arrest of Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News Corps’s subsidiary News International and The Sun editor, following a phone hacking scandal that was first disclosed in 2010 and erupted earlier this month.
Brooks was arrested Monday on suspicion of corruption and conspiracy to intercept communications, following her resignation from The Sun on Friday, according to Bloomberg. The alleged phone hacking, which included reports that journalists broke into the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, caused News Corp. to shutter operations for News of the World.
In addition, Anonymous hackers paid a small homage to former News of the World reporter and whistleblower Sean Hoare after he was found dead unexplainably at his home in Watford, north of London on Monday.
“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us. #antisec #anonymous RIP Sean Hoare, a pioneer of #hackgate,” the Anonymous tweet read.
Police said they were not treating Hoare’s death as suspicious , according to Reuters, but remained mum as to the cause.
Hoare, a former News of the World journalist, had alerted major media outlets that former editor Andy Coulson was aware of and widely encouraged phone hacking by his staff. Specifically, Hoare had told the BBC that Coulson had asked him to tap into phones, and disclosed to the New York Times that the phone hacking scandal was more extensive than previously suspected. Hoare later revealed that the News of the World staff used police technology to track phones.
Hoare was later terminated from News of the World for problems related to drinking and drugs.