Mike Andrew Consulting

Hackers target Sun newspaper

By mike, Jul 19 in blog with 0 comments

Computer hackers have targeted The Sun website with visitors being redirected to a hoax story about Rupert Murdoch’s suicide.

The group LulzSec, which has previously targeted companies including Sony, says it carried out the hijack, via messages on Twitter.

Internet users trying to access thesun.co.uk were redirected to new-times.co.uk and a story entitled ‘Media mogul’s body discovered’.

It suggested that Murdoch had been found after he had ‘ingested a large quantity of palladium’.

After that site stopped working, The Sun address was re-directing to LulzSec’s Twitter account, which claimed to be displaying ‘hacked internal Sun staff data’ in one entry.

A News International spokeswoman confirmed the company was ‘aware’ of what was happening, but made no further comment.

LulzSec is a group of hackers that has claimed responsibility for various high-profile computer attacks on bodies including FBI partner organisations, the CIA, the US Senate and a pornography website.

In the UK it also carried out a distributed denial of service attack – where large numbers of computers overload a target with web requests – on the Serious and Organised Crime Agency website.

The group’s name comes from the word lulz, which is online slang for laughter at someone else’s expense. Their logo is a cartoon man in a top hat and monocle, holding a glass of wine.

About the author

Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.