Loss-making Malaysia Airlines (MAS) today assured its customers that its website was secure, after a message posted by an entity claiming to be from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) militant group appeared on the flag carrier's website front page.
The national carrier said the incident was not hacking, but users were redirected to a hacker website when they keyed in the www.malaysiaairlines.com due to a compromise on its Domain Name System, or DNS, which translates a domain name to the Internet Protocol (IP) address.
Hundreds of Malaysia Airlines passengers complained that it was hard to access details of bookings due to the compromised DNS.
“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,” it said in a statement, adding that the system would be fully recovered by today.
MAS said its web servers are now intact and it had reported the case to CyberSecurity Malaysia as well as the transport ministry.
This morning, the national airline's website showed the words “Plane not found”, and was signed off as “Cyber Caliphate”, as a rap song played in the background.
The website title was also changed to “Isis will prevail”.
It is understood that only those using Telekom Malaysia's Unifi service were redirected to the page.
An AFP report said the hackers claimed to be from the "Lizard Squad", a group known for previous denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.
KUALA LUMPUR: The group allegedly responsible for the hacking of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) website on Monday is hatching a bold plan to launch another 'attack' on social media.
After more than 24 hours since the attacks, a tweet from the Lizard Squad mentioned that it is organising an email dump of the national carrier.
pergh, sebelom attack buat cabaran dulu macam hajime kindaichi vs pencuri kobes pencuri gentleman
MAS kata data user semua selamat hackers balas balik. data user semua tak selamat CheeDee diorang siap dedahkan itenerary Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed.. dia booking flight ape, pegi mane...
PETALING JAYA: International and Trade Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed was among the passengers whose names were on the itinerary that was leaked in the hacking of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) website.
Mustapa had made a booking with MAS for Jan 26 from Subang to Kota Baru on a Firefly flight.
A passenger whose name and contact details were available on the twitter account of Lizard Squad, the group which claimed responsibility for the hacking, confirmed that he had also booked a flight.
“Yes, I booked a flight with MAS.
“I will call them to check if my booking has been compromised,” he said when contacted by The Star Online on Monday.
In one of their tweets, the group mentioned that MAS was lying when the airline said the user data wasn’t compromised.
“We would like to point out that @mas is lying about user data not being compromised. Refer to earlier imgur link,” they posted at around 2.18pm on Monday.
In another tweet, they warned that they would continue to hack MAS’ servers.
Earlier today, MAS confirmed that their Domain Name System (DNS) has been compromised where users are re-directed to a hacker website when users access their website.
“At this stage, Malaysia Airlines’ web servers are intact.
“The airline has resolved the issue with its service provider and the system is expected to be fully recovered within 22 hours,” said MAS in a press statement.
They have reported to CyberSecurity Malaysia and the Ministry of Transport on the matter and also assured customers and clients that this temporary glitch does not affect their bookings and their user data is secure.