Lizard Squad claims responsibility for hacking Malaysia Airlines website

TORONTO – Malaysia Airlines’ website has been restored following a cyber-attack that saw the homepage littered with statements showing support for the Islamic State and mocking the airline for the disappearance of flight MH370.

Early Monday morning, the airline’s site was changed to display a message that read “404 – Plane not Found” with a picture of a lizard in a top hat and tuxedo smoking a pipe – the mascot of the well-known hacking group Lizard Squad.

The browser tab for the website said “ISIS will prevail.”

Later, the website was again alerted to remove the ISIS reference and add a link to Lizard Squad’s Twitter account.

http://twitter.com/redditfunnybot/status/559594030162771969/

According to a statement posted on Malaysia Airlines’ Facebook page, users were being re-directed to a hacker website when they tried to access the www.malaysiaairlines.com URL.

“At this stage, Malaysia Airlines’ web servers are intact,” read the statement. “The airline has resolved the issue with its service provider and the system is expected to be fully recovered within 22 hours.”

Malaysia Airlines said the incident was a “temporary glitch” that didn’t affect passenger bookings. The airline maintains user data “remains secured.”

But Lizard Squad has accused Malaysia Airlines of lying, claiming it did indeed steal data from the airline’s website.

The hackers have threatened to release some of the data.

At this point it’s unclear why Lizard Squad may have targeted the airline.

Lizard Squad has become a notable hacker group, due to its ability to take down large gaming networks using Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Most recently the group took responsibility for crippling Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox network on Christmas Day.

READ MORE: Who is ‘Lizard Squad’ and why do they hack gaming networks?

Last August the group also gained the attention of the FBI after causing an American Airlines flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley to divert after tweeting that there were explosives on the plane.

– With a file from The Associated Press