The personal details of hundreds of thousands of Sun newspaper readers, including home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, have been posted on popular filesharing websites.
In an email sent to affected customers on Monday evening, former Alchemetrics chief Chris Duncan, who is now director of customer data for News International, said that the data was stolen during an attack on the Sun website last month.
The hack attack also led to a breach of the company’s content management systems and a fake story appeared on The Sun’s website that Rupert Murdoch had been found dead.
The Sun data expose has been attributed to a hacker calling himself Batteye, who claims not to be affiliated with hack attack groups LulzSec or Anonymous. Batteye said he had also posted the details of people who had entered competitions with the newspaper, or posted comments on the paper’s website.
“It’s amazing how much info can be kept in the one place. Names, Emails, Addresses, Mobile numbers…” said the hacker. He claimed that other details included a list of people who said they had been bullied at school, as well as entrants in recent editions of the annual Miss Scotland beauty pageant.
News International said in a statement to The Times newspaper that it was tackling the problem. “We take customer data extremely seriously and are working with the relevant authorities to resolve this matter. We are directly contacting any customers affected by this.” It has not made any further comment.
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