Well, seems like LulzSec has returned, and moved beyond the DDOS attack! Not content to merely shut down one of Rupert Murdoch's paper's websites, the hacking group has instead planted a bizarro-Onionesque account of the mogul's death-by-palladium on a Times redesign page masquerading as The Sun. Well played, #AntiSec.


The the hack was first announced by AnonymousIRC with a tweet, saying:

We have joy we have fun we will mess up Murdoch's Sun: http://t.co/JArvwg1 | Hi Rupert! Have fun tomorrow at the Parliament! #AntiSec


Murdoch's papers of course, and several of his lieutenants have been implicated in the massive hacking scandal that began to unfold earlier this month. Murdoch is scheduled to appear before the British parliament tomorrow.

As of the time of this post, the report was still up. Despite announcing the attack ten minutes after AnonymousIRC—and previous claims of retirement—LulzSec has taken credit for the hacking. They claimed in a tweet that visits to The Sun's homepage redirected to the Murdoch death notice page, though that no longer appears to be the case. And in case it gets taken down soon, here's the full text:

LulzSec Calls It Quits LulzSec, after having wreaked all sorts of global havoc over the last several weeks, has officially Read more

Media moguls [sic] body discovered Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce.

Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning.

"We found the chemicals sitting beside a kitchen table, recently cooked," one officer states. "From what we can gather, Murdoch melted and consumed large quantities of it before exiting into his garden." Chemicals found in house Authorities would not comment on whether this was a planned suicide, though the general consensus among locals and unnamed sources is that this is the case.

One detective elaborates. "Officers on the scene report a broken glass, a box of vintage wine, and what seems to be a family album strewn across the floor, containing images from days gone by; some containing handpainted portraits of Murdoch in his early days, donning a top hat and monocle."

Another officer reveals that Murdoch was found slumped over a particularly large garden hedge fashioned into a galloping horse. "His favourite", a butler, Davidson, reports.

Butler Davidson has since been taken into custody for additional questioning.

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As far as post-modern takes on "who will watch the watchmen" go, it ain't half bad. Here's the full page image:


Update: The Times dummy page has finally been taken down—and visiting TheSun.co.uk will redirect you to the LulzSec twitter page—but will stay up indefinitely here on Gizmodo.

Also, the email logins of major News of the World players—including former top News Corp exec Rebeka Brooks—have begun trickling out.


Former Top Murdoch Exec Rebekah Brooks Arrested Rebekah Brooks, who resigned as chief of News Corp subsidiary News International on Friday, was… Read more

Apparently News International attempted to put out a statement regarding what had happened to The Sun, but LulzSec redirected the page to its Twitter feed before it could be widely circulated. [Times via Twitter]