Sun website users' personal details hacked

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/02/sun-website-users-personal-details-hacked

Sun website users' personal details hacked

News International warns names and addresses may have been posted online by hacker, understood not to be linked to LulzSec



Charles Arthur
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 August 2011 08.11 BST
Article history

The Sun website
News International has warned Sun website users their personal details may have been hacked

News International has emailed thousands of people to warn them that one or more hackers have copied personal details of thousands of people who entered competitions and polls on the Sun's website and are posting them publicly on the internet.

In an email sent out late on Monday evening, the director of customer data for News International, Chris Duncan, says that in a hacking attack on 19 July – when a fake story claiming that Rupert Murdoch was dead was planted on the site – "some customer information from competitions and polls was breached". Among the details are names, addresses, date of birth, email and phone numbers. "No financial or password information was compromised," Duncan writes.

Samples from files in which Sun readers entered a Monarch quiz in 2009, a list of Scottish students, the Miss Scotland contestants database, a Wrigleys football competition, an Xbox competition, referendum, royal wedding well-wishers, and a forum for bullied people have been posted on the Pastebin site, a popular site among hackers for posting public messages anonymously. Many include personal information including phone numbers and addresses.

Duncan says that News International is working closely with the police and the information commissioner "to ensure that all steps are taken to retrieve the files involved".

The files appear to have been released by a hacker who on Twitter calls himself Batteye. He claims not to have any association or affiliation with the hacking group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for the NI hack on 19 July. Three Britons alleged to have been involved with LulzSec have been arrested in the past six weeks.

In what appears to be a manifesto of his motivations, Batteye wrote on Pastebin that "Mankind makes mistakes. Mankind is all the better for them. Mankind learns from them. Some people, however, do not learn. Until these people are pruned by natural selection, incarceration, or otherwise, then mankind will not develop. We will remain prey to the 'malicious' type of hacker that steals credit card information, or deletes voicemail messages and pushing the victims family to grieve more for their loved ones.

"This is unacceptable... We will begin today be presenting to you, various files obtained from the Sun, a company within the News Corp group. We will continue, then, by exposing the world for what it is; a less than perfect place where we cannot trust those who we ask to protect our information."

Note I saw this article by JKH

Yesterday at 7:28 pm
Has anyone else received an email like this? I have only ever posted comments about the McCanns on the Sun newspaper online.

Dear Reader,

I am writing to you on behalf of News Group Newspapers (NGN) – publisher of The Sun and former publisher of the News of the World.

As you may be aware on July 19th The Sun website was subject to an organised criminal attack. It has now come to our attention that some customer information from competitions and polls was breached as part of this attack. Details vary, but could include name, address, date of birth, email and phone numbers. No financial or password information was compromised.

We are contacting you because we believe that information that you submitted to us could have been accessed, and may be published online by the group responsible. We are working closely with the Police and the Information Commissioner's Office to ensure that all steps are taken to retrieve the files involved.

We regret that we've not been able to stop this incident from happening. We'll update you directly if there are further developments related to your specific data. We would advise as a precaution to take extra care when dealing with contact from third parties if they are unknown to you.

In the meantime if you have any questions or require any further information, please contact us at custserv@thesun.co.uk or on 0207 8601129.

Regards,
Chris Duncan
Director of Customer Management

I got one of those emails yesterday and I can't understand why because I've never registered with the Sun. The only place I registered was with Sky forums.

Angelina wrote:I got one of those emails yesterday and I can't understand why because I've never registered with the Sun. The only place I registered was with Sky forums.

Me too!!

Umm, so where they getting all these email address' from?

Maybe you forgot to tick the box about sharing your details with "trusted" affiliates