News Corp's Australian site may have hosted virus

The woes of News Corp., the company behind the controversial and now-defunct "News of the World" tabloid, appear to continue. One of News Corp.'s online publications, the Herald Sun, admitted earlier this week it may have exposed visitors to a computer virus, tech site The Next Web reported on Thursday. But The Next Web reported that the "apology" was virtually hidden on the bottom right of the site. It said that users could be infected if they authorized the installation of the virus after a getting a pop-up message. The apology appeared to have been removed at least from the site's home page as of Thursday afternoon, Manila time. A separate article on The Age quoted the Herald Sun as saying on its site: "The Herald Sun wishes to apologise to any readers who may have been affected by a virus that appeared for a short time on heraldsun.com.au." It said the offending virus and files "were quickly removed and the site is operating as normal." The Herald Sun is a publication of the Herald and Weekly Times, a division of News Limited, which in turn is part of the News Corp. Ltd. The Age noted News Limited had taken quite a beating in the wake of the "News of the World" phone hacking scandal and subsequent closure. — TJD, GMA News