LulzSec claims to have News International emails

One of the members of the LulzSec hacking group has claimed on Twitter that the group has got 4GB of emails taken from the Sun and the "royal family" which may be released as soon as lunchtime on Thursday. The claim follows a hacking attack against News International on Tuesday night during which members of LulzSec apparently broke into computer systems there and redirected readers of the Sun's website to a faked page claiming News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch had been found dead. Significantly, the group also seems to have broken into the email database at News International. Some accounts belonging to Anonymous also began tweeting email addresses and passwords for staff at News International, including what seemed to be an email account and password for Rebekah Brooks under her previous married name of Wade while at the Sun. The password appeared to be valid based on the contents of the tweet, which included the encrypted form of the password. News International reacted by closing down all external access to its webmail systems and forcing users to reset their passwords. The company declined to comment at the time on whether the hackers might have had external access to email accounts, but the fact that it shut down the access suggests that it feared they might. Equally, the hackers almost certainly would not have begun tweeting details of their find without having first exploited it. Contacts within Anonymous have told Guardian journalists that News International's email systems were being probed last week and that downloads were being made then.