‘The Lizard Squad’ hacks Malaysia Airlines website

26 Jan 2015

Hacking group ‘The Lizard Squad’ has attacked the official website of Malaysia Airlines.

The national carrier’s homepage appears to be currently operational, but as reported by the BBC, the site was offline and replaced with a photograph of a lizard in a top hat and tuxedo (below) for a time this morning following the breach.

The text “404 – Plane Not Found” and “Hacked by Lizard Squad” were also displayed within in the image.

In a Facebook message, Malaysia Airlines confirmed that its domain name system (DNS) had been compromised but assured customers there data had not been stolen.

“At this stage, Malaysia Airlines’ web servers are intact,” wrote the firm.

“The airline has resolved the issue with its service provider and the system is expected to be fully recovered within 22 hours.

“The matter has also been immediately reported to CyberSecurity Malaysia and the Ministry of Transport.

“Malaysia Airlines assures customers and clients that its website was not hacked and this temporary glitch does not affect their bookings and that user data remains secured.”

Earlier this month, an 18-year-old British man said to be connected within the Lizard Squad was arrested over the denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the PlayStation Network and Xbox live last year.

The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) Cyber Crime Unit made the arrest, along with the Titan North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) in the town of Southport. Officers detained the man following the online attack against the two biggest gaming console networks on Christmas Day.

Dean Van Nguyen was a contributor to Silicon Republic

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