Herald Sun drops malware on readers

The embattled News Corporation is facing more hacking dramas this week, after a News Limited subsidiary today revealed that it had been forced to remove malware that was being transmitted to readers from the websites of the Herald Sun and The Weekly Times.

According to Fairfax, the malware presented itself in a the form of a pop-up window, and only installed itself if the user authorised it.

The Herald and The Weekly Times chief digital officer Peter Clark told ZDNet Australia today that hackers had planted the malware in the digital publications.

"The Herald and Weekly Times, publishers of heraldsun.com.au, can confirm that we did have a hacking attack on the Herald Sun website on Monday 11 July.

"The attack attached malware on some files on the site," Clark said, revealing little else for fear of future security threats.

"We have since addressed the issue, but we are not in a position to release any further details, on the basis that it may provide information for further attacks," he said.

The Herald Sun hack job comes as parent company News Corporation and UK arm News International spirals deeper and deeper into legal hot water after Sunday paper News of the World was forced to close its doors when caught cracking private voicemail accounts.

The News of the World scandal has seen the publication allegedly snoop on the voicemails of thousands, with one Reuters report suggesting that journalists invaded the voicemails of war widows, and even the families of child murder victims.

AdNews has today obtained an internal email from News Limited Australia boss John Hartigan, who said that the company will be conducting a review into its editorial expenses.

"We will be conducting a thorough review of all editorial expenditure over the past three years to confirm that payments to contributors and other third parties were for legitimate services," Hartigan reportedly said in an internal memo.