Anonymous Hack The Sun Front Page With Fake Murdoch Death Story

THE hackers have been hacked. Hacking group LulzSec – blamed for hacking the CIA and Sony earlier this year – have turned on News Corp and hacked the front page of the Sun Online with a fake story about Rupert Murdoch’s death. LulzSec and related hacker group Anonymous also claim to be sitting on a gold-mine of emails they’ve stolen from News Corp detailing illegal dealings inside The Sun and The News of The World. They threaten to release them tomorrow.

The email claims were made on the Twitter accounts of Anonymous leader @AnonymouSabu and on @LulzSec, both accounts that have served as mouthpieces for the hacking groups before.

For the past hour anyone visting www.thesun.co.uk has been redirected to www.new-times.co.uk/sun/ – a fake site set up by Anonymous which splashes on a fake news story about Rupert Murdoch’s death. The text relates a gruesome account of a suicide.

“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.”

The story winds up with a blatant reference to LulzSec’s trademark icon – the monocled top-hat wearing gentleman:

“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.”

In case we hadn’t got the message, they paste a cartoon at the bottom of the page:

The hackers have been hacked. Expect more dramatic revelations tomorrow when these stolen emails leak online. Follow the Twitter accounts above for the links.

In the meantime – we’ve got even more hackers than we thought we had, and nobody knows what’s going on.

Anna Leach

Posted: 18th, July 2011 | In: Technology Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink