The Sun newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was hacked on Monday night by cyberprotesters LulzSec.

Visitors to the national newspaper’s website were automatically redirected to a different site (http://www.new-times.co.uk/sun/) that looked like The Sun, but detailed the fake death of Rupert Murdoch.

The story read:

“Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce.

“Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning.

"We found the chemicals sitting beside a kitchen table, recently cooked," one officer states. "From what we can gather, Murdoch melted and consumed large quantities of it before exiting into his garden."

"Authorities would not comment on whether this was a planned suicide, though the general consensus among locals and unnamed sources is that this is the case.

"One detective elaborates. 'Officers on the scene report a broken glass, a box of vintage wine, and what seems to be a family album strewn across the floor, containing images from days gone by; some containing handpainted portraits of Murdoch in his early days, donning a top hat and monocle.'

"Another officer reveals that Murdoch was found slumped over a particularly large garden hedge fashioned into a galloping horse. 'His favourite', a butler, Davidson, reports.

"Butler Davidson has since been taken into custody for additional questioning."

The story ends with a cartoon by LulzSec.

All other links on the page lead back to The Sun’s website.

Meanwhile on Twitter the Lulzsec Twitter account stated:

"We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days."

And according to another Twitter user anonymouSabu:

"We hereby challenge the authorities in the U.K. to investigate the hack on the mail server(s) associated to The Sun/NotW. #hackgate #antisec"

UPDATE: The Sun's homepage is now re-routing to LulzSecs Twitter homepage, which is detailing the hack as it happens. The latest at time of writing states:

"This is just as fun on the inside. We are battling with The Sun admins right now - I think they are losing. The boat has landed... >:]

"TheSun.co.uk now redirects to our twitter feed. Hello, everyone that wanted to visit The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good!"