Lulzsec hack the Sun and claim to have their emails

News International, under investigation for phone hacking by News of the World journalists, got a taste of its own medicine last night, after hackers succeeded in taking down the Sun and Times websites.

Lulzsec, a mysterious group who target corporations they believe to have committed abuses of power, injected a line of computer code onto the Sun's website, thesun.co.uk, which redirected users to a spoof article on their own website, new-times.co.uk/sun.

The article (pictured above) claimed that Rupert Murdoch had committed suicide by ingesting "a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden".

Lulzsec celebrated its success last night by tweeting: "WE HAVE JOY WE HAVE FUN, WE HAVE MESSED UP MURDOCH'S SUN."

Later, they added: "Arrest us. We dare you. We are the unstoppable hacking generation and you are a wasted old sack of shit, Murdoch. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER!"

However, Lulzsec's success was such that the spoof website was quickly overloaded with traffic. The hackers responded by changing the redirect to send Sun readers to their own Twitter feed. Sun admins eventually managed to beat the attack off, but the website of another News International title, the Times, was still down this morning.

The hackers also posted the contact details of Sun employees, although this data is likely to be old, since it included the UK mobile phone number of Pete Picton and email details of Rebekah Brooks. Picton left the Sun for News Corp in the United States last year, while Brooks left her job as Sun editor in 2009.

Lulzsec's return to the fray has surprised many, because in June they posted a statement saying they had disbanded. At the time, it was thought they were worried law enforcement agencies were getting too close for comfort.

The group addressed the issue last night, tweeting: "I know we quit, but we couldn't sit by with our wine watching this walnut-faced Murdoch clowning around." And this could be just the beginning of the hacking misery for News International. Lulzsec referred to this attack as "phase 1", saying: "Expect the lulz to flow in coming days." ·