HACK ATTACK: Visitors to The Sun's website were redirected to a page featuring a story saying Rupert Murdoch had been found dead.

Hackers who broke into the News Corporation network and forced its British websites offline claim to have stolen sensitive data from the company including emails and usernames/passwords.



All of News Corporation's UK sites were taken offline today following an attack on the website of tabloid The Sun, which earlier today was redirecting to a fake story about Rupert Murdoch's death.



Further pain is expected for the media mogul as the hacker group responsible for the attack claims to have also stolen emails and passwords for News International executives and journalists.

It said it would release more information tomorrow.

News Corp is considering promoting Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey to the position of CEO to succeed Rupert Murdoch, who would remain as chairman, Bloomberg reported.

AP FOUND DEAD: Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare.

The report said that a decision has not yet been made, and depends on Murdoch's performance before the British Parliament early tomorrow.

A News Corp board source said however the board was fully behind Murdoch.

Meanwhile a group of internet hackers had earlier tampered with the Sun's site - the latest bizarre twist in the newspaper scandal rocking the world's media magnate.

Reuters OUT: Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism chief, John Yates, quit a day after the head of the Metropolitan Police.

Visitors to The Sun's website late Monday (local time) were redirected to a page featuring a story saying Murdoch's dead body had been found in his garden.

Lulz Security took responsibility via Twitter, calling it a successful part of "Murdoch Meltdown Monday."

Readers were also directed to Lulz' Twitter feed, which read: "Lulz Security® (LulzSec), the world's leaders in high-quality entertainment at your expense".

A police car outside the apartment block where former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare was found dead.

News International's websites, newsint.co.uk and newsinternational.co.uk, were also down.

It is believed News took the decision to pull the plug on its entire British network of sites following the hack attack on The Sun.

The site displaying the fake story then crashed because of heavy traffic, before The Sun's website redirected to LulzSec's Twitter page.

"TheSun.co.uk now redirects to our twitter feed. Hello, everyone that wanted to visit The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good!," the hackers wrote.

The fake Murdoch death story claimed the mogul "ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night".

In a tweet, LulzSec member Sabu suggested the group had also stolen News International journalists' emails or email login details. "Sun/News of the world OWNED. We're sitting on their emails. Press release tomorrow," Sabu wrote.

Sabu and other LulzSec members then began tweeting what they claimed were the usernames and passwords of top News International executives.

"Arrest us. We dare you. We are the unstoppable hacking generation and you are a wasted old sack of sh--, Murdoch," read one post.

NEW HEAD FOR NEWS CORP?

Carey, a 23-year News Corp veteran and long-time lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, is favoured by investors in the United States to take control of the business if Murdoch, 80, stands down.

Until a phone hacking scandal at News Corp's UK papers started escalating over the past three weeks, James Murdoch, who is deputy chief operating officer, had been seen as his father's successor.

Meanwhile Sean Hoare, the whistleblower reporter who alleged widespread hacking at the News of the World, has been found dead, say police.



Police said Hoare's death at his home in England was not considered to be suspicious, according to Britain's Press Association news agency.



Hoare was quoted by The New York Times as saying that phone-hacking was widely used and even encouraged at the News of the World tabloid under then-editor Andy Coulson.

He also told the BBC he was asked by Coulson to snoop on phone messages.

Coulson - who most recently served as UK Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief - was arrested as part of the widening investigation into phone hacking and police corruption. He has denied being aware of any wrongdoing at the paper.

SENIOR POLICE OFFICER RESIGNS

A second senior British policeman resigned overnight over the corruption scandal that has engulfed the global media empire.



Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism chief, John Yates, quit a day after the head of the Metropolitan Police.

The force faces a storm of questions from parliament and voters over officers' relationships with the Murdoch press and their failure to probe allegations of phone-hacking by the News of the World.



With events accelerating in an affair that has electrified public life and strained ties among Britain's press, police and politicians, Cameron curtailed a visit to Africa and defended himself from police criticism over his choice of the tabloid's former editor as government spokesman.



Though he faces no challenge yet to his leadership, some of his Conservative supporters began to raise the possibility, albeit remote, that Cameron might face pressure to go himself.

He will return early from Africa tomorrow to face a new parliamentary debate on the scandal.



Following the arrest Sunday of Murdoch's British newspaper chief Rebekah Brooks, a personal friend of Cameron and one of two top News Corp executives to resign on Friday, the Murdoch family's management of its global business interests was also being questioned by investors.



The company said it was setting up an independent ethics committee under Anthony Grabiner, a commercial lawyer and member of the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords.



Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and 43-year-old Brooks will be quizzed by the media committee of the lower house in what promises to be a fiery showdown.

BUSINESS TAKES A BATTERING

News Corp shares climbed as much as 3.7 percent in Australia after Bloomberg reported the firm was considering elevating Carey. The stocks had hit a new low yesterday following news of Brooks' arrest.

Standard & Poor's Rating Services has put all ratings on News Corp on CreditWatch with negative implications given the business and reputational risks associated with widening legal probes in Britain and pressure for a FBI investigation in the US.

The affair had already prompted Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old News of the World, Britain's top-selling Sunday paper, and to drop a bid for highly profitable BSkyB that was a key part of News Corp's global expansion in television.

That in turn sparked concerns from investors.



"People would rather be cautious and mark it down rather than find a reason to defend it," said Jackson Leung at News Corp shareholder Invesco of the multinational's share price.



James Murdoch's future as chairman of BSkyB was thrown into doubt after minority investors called for a corporate governance health check of its board.



It is the latest action to weaken James' position and increased the likelihood that his executive role at News Corp could be in jeopardy.



"We think they should review the composition of the BSkyB board and the influence exerted by those with ties to News Corp," one top 10 investor in the British satellite broadcaster told Reuters on condition of anonymity.



A second top 25 investor in the company said BSkyB's corporate governance remained "tricky" but he denied market chatter that fellow shareholders were determined to drive out Murdoch.

A series of missteps by James in handling the scandal are believed to have upset his chances for taking over in the near term.



"We're looking for the silver lining in all this, and it could be this crisis forces News Corp to clarify its succession plan," said Tuna Amobi, an analyst at Standard & Poor's.



"Most investors I speak to would love for Chase to be given an even more prominent role," said Amobi.



Murdoch, who some media commentators say at first misjudged the strength of public anger against a man who has influenced British politics for decades, published apologies in several rival newspapers at the weekend.

He also apologised in person to the parents of the murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked.

POLICE CRITICISE CAMERON



Police, under pressure for failing to probe more widely after the jailing of a News of the World reporter in 2007, have since said an inquiry they relaunched in January has the names of some 4000 people who may have been spied on, including child crime victims and the parents of soldiers killed in war.



Yates, who was savaged by a parliamentary committee at a public hearing last week, had been the focus of complaints that in 2009 he reviewed evidence of phone-hacking by the News of the World and ruled that it did not merit reopening inquiries.

The mayor of London said Yates, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had resigned rather than be suspended.



In stepping down as Britain's top policeman, Yates's boss Paul Stephenson said he could not carry on while investigations continue into the appointment by his force of a former deputy editor of the News of the World as a public relations consultant.



Stephenson also made an unusual, if veiled, personal attack on the prime minister by contrasting Cameron's defiant reaction to revelations about his spokesman Coulson with the police chief tendering his resignation in response to the hiring of Neil Wallis, Coulson's former deputy, as an adviser.



Stephenson noted that Cameron had appointed Coulson in 2007, shortly after Coulson resigned as the paper's editor following the jailing of a reporter for hacking. And he said Wallis had, until this month, not been linked to the scandal at all.



"Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge, been in any way associated with the original phone-hacking investigation," Stephenson said.



Picking up on that, opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband highlighted the "sharp contrast" between Cameron and the police response, but he stopped short of calling outright for the prime minister, in office for only 14 months, to resign.



Cameron said the case of the Government and police was not comparable.



"I don't believe the two situations are the same in any shape or form," he told a news conference in Pretoria.



"There is a contrast with the situation at the Metropolitan Police, where clearly the issues have been around whether or not the investigation is being pursued properly."



Cameron also said parliament would delay its summer recess by a day to let him address lawmakers again on Wednesday.



- Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald and AP