'Hactivist' group LulzSec has claimed that the attack, which happened last night (18 July) and which it has dubbed "Murdoch Meltdown Monday", was part of its revenge on the Murdoch empire.
LulzSec, along with fellow hacking collective Group Anon, has also been posting email login details on the internet, including the password of ex-News International CEO Rebekah Brooks, and the mobile numbers of various other executives.
The group said it managed to bring down News International's DNS servers, which host the group's 1,024 websites. At the time of writing, The Sun's website is back up and running, but thetimes.co.uk is still down.
The fake story, which visitors to The Sun's homepage were redirected to, claimed that Murdoch senior had died from a suspected drug overdose and that his body had been found in his "famous topiary garden".
The Sun site later redirected visitors to LulzSec's , where the group claimed credit. "We have joy, we have fun, we have messed up Murdoch's sun," it said.
A post on Twitter by Times columnist Giles Coren also appeared to confirm that News International's entire system was hacked.
Tweeting this morning, he said: "Heard 'Sun website' hacked, but must be the whole newsint system, coz i can't access my email. Drat. Have to take day off."
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