Syrian hacking group

Syrian hacking group places pop-up message on websites

Betting site William Hill, the Daily Telegraph, Independent and La Repubblica newspapers and broadcaster CNBC were among those affected.

The attack was carried out by targeting a third-party widget used by the sites.

The companies affected have stressed that their visitors' personal data remained safe.

A worker at Gigya, a California-based customer identity management service, confirmed to the BBC that the hackers had mounted the attack by changing its domain name system entry.