News Corp tabloid publishes Murdoch death hoax

Hacker group LulzSec broke into the website of British tabloid The Sun this morning to post a hoax report that media mogul Rupert Murdoch was found dead.

The article, now removed, claimed the embattled owner of the newspaper had died at his home last night.

LulzSec appeared to have exploited an application flaw that allowed the group to hijack a "breaking news" iFrame on the homepage which redirected visitors to the fake article.

"The Sun's homepage now redirects to the Murdoch death story on the recently-owned New Times website," the hackers said via Twitter. "Can you spell success, gentlemen?"

The attack against the News International paper followed the high-profile phone-hacking scandal which had embroiled the now defunct News of the World tabloid.

LulzSec reunited after it disbanded last month to hack the site. It also posted what appeared to be emails and passwords of News International staff including former News of the World managing editor Bill Akass.

Another Twitter feed associated with the group claimed to have hacked a server owned by the now-defunct News of the World, calling on police to investigate the mail server.

The hacking group then redirected The Sun homepage to its Twitter feed before the website hole was closed.

The attack is the second of its type launched by LulzSec. In May, the group hacked the servers of the US Public Broadcasting Service and posted a fake article reporting rappers Tupac and Biggie Smalls were found alive in New Zealand.