Malaysia Airlines website hacked by Lizard Squad

Update: (8.30am - 26/1/2015): The Malaysia Airlines website is now back online and operating normally.

Original story:

The website of Malaysia Airlines has been knocked offline by the infamous group of hackers known as the Lizard Squad who last month paralysed the PlayStation and Xbox networks.

The website was knocked offline initially on Monday morning and replaced with a holding page which claimed it was "Hacked by Cyber Caliphate" and encouraged visitors to follow the group on Twitter.

Cyber Caliphate is the hacking wing of Islamic State (IS) which is thought to be responsible for a recent hack of the US Central Command's Twitter and YouTube accounts.

However the defaced Malaysia Airlines page now displays the symbol of the Lizard Squad hackers and has been replaced by the message "Hacked by Lizard Squad - Official Cyber Caliphate".

The names of two hacking groups - Lizard Squad and UGNazi - along with two individuals - Henry Blair Strater and Nathan Nye - are listed on the left-hand side of the page.

The defaced webpage also mentions LizardStresser, the DDoS (distributed denial of service) tool the group sells to individuals and businesses to allow them knock any website offline.

"404 - Plane not found"

In a crude and mocking reference to the still-missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which went missing on 8 March, 2014, the hackers have replaced the typical website error message "404- Page not found" with "404-Plane not found".

In a statement, Malaysia Airlines confirmed the attack:

"Malaysia Airlines confirms that its Domain Name System (DNS) has been compromised where users are re-directed to a hacker website whenwww.malaysiaairlines.com URL is keyed in. 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."

While it is unclear just why Lizard Squad targeted the airline in the first place, the hackers say Malaysia Airlines is lying about customer data being secure, promising to release information stolen in the attack:

The group said that it was "going to dump some loot" is obtained during the attack soon, though just what that "loot" is remains unclear.

Arrests

Since the attacks on PSN and Xbox Live in December, authorities in the US and UK have been carrying out a major investigation resulting in several arrests in the UK in recent weeks.

On New Years' Eve a 22-year-old from Twickenham was arrested on suspicion of fraud by false representation and Computer Misuse Act offences, and is scheduled to appear in court again on 10 March.

This week, a teenager from Southport near Liverpool was arrested in relation to the attacks on PSN and Xbox Live, as well as so-called swatting offences - the term used to describe the act of knowingly providing false information to law enforcement about a target.

In an interview last year, the Southport teenager claimed that Lizard Squad had up to 15 members.