Malaysia Airlines website back up after being hacked by Lizard Squad

The official website of national carrier Malaysia Airlines was hacked earlier today by a group calling itself the "Official Cyber Caliphate".The website, www.malaysiaairlines.com, had displayed a photograph of a lizard in a top hat and tuxedo, surrounded by the messages '404 - Plane Not Found' and 'Hacked by Lizard Squad - Official Cyber Caliphate'.The hackers also listed three unverified Twitter account addresses and a recorded a rap song. Representatives from the airline did not respond to calls by Reuters.MAS was hit by twin air disasters last year: the disappearance of Flight MH370 in March and the shooting down of Flight MH17 a few months later. The government took the airline private late last year.When we visited the website after a few hours, it was functioning normally. Though, the below message also popped out.[caption id="attachment_251617" align="aligncenter" width="640" class=" "] Image: Malaysia Airlines Homepage[/caption]The company said that it would be taking necessary steps to ensure that our data is safe. A report by CNBC stated that Malaysia Airlines claimed that its website had not been hacked, refuting claims by hacker group "Lizard Squad," who appeared to have taken over the main page earlier in the day and made references to the Islamic State. The report also stated that the system is expected to be fully recovered within 22 hours.Earlier reports suggest that Lizard Squad, the hacking group that took down PSN and Xbox Live had started selling its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack tool. A DDoS attack is a method to overload a server with requests and eventually make its network or machine unavailable for its users. With this tool called ‘Lizard Stresser’ anyone can take down a website or an online service.With inputs from Reuters