Malaysia Airlines site hacked by Lizard Squad

Update: Malaysia Airlines’ site is now up and running again.

Malaysia Airlines’ website has been hacked today by the cyber-attack group Lizard Squad, which now appears to be calling itself ‘Official Cyber Caliphate’.

The national carrier’s site shows a header that says ‘404 – Plane Not Found’, likely a reference to the loss of Flight MH370 last March and the shooting down of Flight MH17 in July. Lizard Squad hasn’t mentioned why it targeted Malaysia Airlines, but seems to imply that it has gained access to some confidential company data.

However, Malaysia Airlines says that its servers are intact and have not leaked any user data, and that it has solved the issue which appears to have been a DNS attack. The company says its site will become fully operational in about 22 hours from now, and that travelers can book flights as usual via this page.

The site also has the familiar Lizard Squad avatar, links to three Twitter accounts (@LizardMafia, @UMGRobert and @UmgChris) and a rap song that plays automatically, celebrating Lizard Squad’s achievements including its recent takedowns of online gaming services Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

While Malaysia Airlines says that it hasn’t lost any data, Lizard Squad tweeted that they have found something on the company which they will share shortly.

https://twitter.com/LizardMafia/status/559510964983197698

It’s not immediately apparent why Esports company UMG Gaming’s owner Robert Terkla’s Twitter account, along with what appears to be CEO Chris Tuck’s account, are listed on the site. Terkla said on Twitter that he had nothing to do with the attack.

➤ Malaysia Airlines [via Reuters]