Readers of Melbourne’s Herald Sun website may have been exposed to a virus, the News Limited tabloid’s website said this week, in another embarrassment for the media company.

‘The Herald Sun wishes to apologise to any readers who may have been affected by a virus that appeared for a short time on heraldsun.com.au,’’ the newspaper said in a note posted to its website. ‘‘The offending virus and files were quickly removed and the site is operating as normal."

The Herald Sun warned readers that their computers could only be infected "if you clicked ‘allow’ to a software download in a pop-up window from bogus sites’’.

Herald & Weekly Times digital operations and business strategy director Peter Clark blamed a hacking attack for the virus.

"The Herald & Weekly Times, publishers of heraldsun.com.au, can confirm that we did have a hacking attack on the Herald Sun web site on Monday July 11," he said. "The attack attached malware on some files on the site."