News International: Data taken during Sun hack published online

by Steve Ragan - Aug 2 2011, 12:22

News International, parent company to the U.K.’s Sun newspaper, is warning thousands of people that their information might have been lifted after a security breach last month at the hands of LulzSec.

In July, the Sun website was hacked by LulzSec, resulting in a false report announcing the death of Rupert Murdoch. The incident occurred just as News Corp. landed in the middle of a hacking scandal itself.

In addition to the fake news, News Corp. employee information, including usernames and passwords, were also posted onto the Web. Some of the data belonged to Rebekah Brooks, the recently resigned chief executive of News International, along with former News Corp. editor Pete Picton, and Bill Akass, an editor at News of the World before the UK tabloid at the center of the recent phone hacking scandal was shuttered.

On Saturday, a database said to have been taken during the Sun attack, was posted to Pastebin. The leaked data, including names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and birthdates, was submitted by hopefuls for Miss Scotland 2011.

“We take customer data extremely seriously and are working with the relevant authorities to resolve this matter,” a spokesperson for News International said in a statement.

“We are directly contacting any customer affected by this.”

Update:

There is speculation online that LulzSec wasn’t the only ones to target The Sun last month.

One Anon, offering his opinion on the latest data leak commented, “Sun got pwned by LulzSec around two weeks ago. Now they got owned by (at least) one other hacker.”

If this is indeed the case, “it’s not much of a surprise that others found the same security holes,” he added.

News Group, who publishes The Sun, claimed that the data was taken during the July 19 attack on the website.

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