Hackers attack French Euromillions lottery site calling it 'devil's work' and posting verse from the Koran

Hackers have attacked the French site of the Euromillions lottery, attacking it as the ‘devil’s work’ and posting Koranic verse in place of its homepage.

The messages warned people to quit gambling and consuming alcohol, saying that they were used by the devil, both of which are forbidden in Islam, to “sow hatred between yourselves and turn you away from God and prayer”.

Posted in both French and Arabic, it read: “Oh you believers. Wine, games of chance, statues all augur impurity and are the work of the devil.” A hacking group calling itself “Morrocanghosts” claimed responsibility for the attack.

Euromillions lottery operator La Francaise des jeux (FDJ) said that none of its other games were affected after the attack, which French media reports said happened yesterday morning. The Euromillions homepage was unavailable last night and is currently redirecting visitors to the FDJ page.

A statement on that site said that all pages hit by the hackers were in “the process of being put back up”. The company added that no personal data was compromised during the attack.

The Twitter user MorrocanGhosts posted a message yesterday in Arabic which read: “After hours ... will penetrate the global gambling sites .. (O ye who believe alcohol and gambling ...”

France has a population of 65 million, including an estimated four million Muslims, the largest Islamic population in western Europe.

The EuroMillions lottery, launched in 2004, is now played by nine countries across western Europe: Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

More than 100 million euros are up for grabs in a EuroMillions jackpot to be played on Tuesday.