Individuals associated with hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec said yesterday's hack of The Sun newspaper Web site also resulted in the collection of emails and passwords from that publication and the now-defunct News of the World.
"Sun/News of the world OWNED. We're sitting on their emails," a hacker known as Sabu tweeted yesterday.
Sabu went on to release the purported email and password for Rebekah Brooks (using her maiden name, Wade), the former News International chief who was arrested over the weekend for her alleged role in a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked parent company News Corporation. A fellow hacker known as anon_alex also posted log-in information for Bill Akass, managing editor of News of the World, which closed its doors in the wake of the scandal.
After a short break, hacker group LulzSec returned yesterday to deface the Web site for The Sun, posting a fake news story that reported the death of News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch. The move came after it was revealed that reporters at the News of the World hacked into the voicemails of a murder victim, those affected by terrorist attacks, and celebrities.
"Thank you for the love tonight. I know we quit, but we couldn't sit by with our wine watching this walnut-faced Murdoch clowning around," LulzSec tweeted. "News International's DNS servers (link web addresses to servers) and all 1,024 web addresses are down."
Murdoch and his son James, meanwhile, appeared before the UK's Commons culture committee today to answer questions about the phone-hacking incident. Rupert Murdoch opened his testimony by stating that "this is the most humble day of my life."
"This is not an excuse," he continued, but "the News of the World is less than 1 percent of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished ... professionals. I'm spread watching and appointing people in my trust to run those divisions."
After several hours of testimony, meanwhile, the hearing was disrupted suddenly when a man lunged at Rupert Murdoch and threw something that looked like shaving cream in his face. Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi, who was seated behind her husband, jumped up quickly and slapped the assailant before police removed the man from the room.