Hackers target Malaysia Airlines, threaten data dump

The Malaysia Airlines website was commandeered Monday by hackers who referenced Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists and claimed to be from the "Lizard Squad", a group known for previous denial-of-service attacks.
      
It was not clear why the troubled airline was targeted but the hacking group said on its Twitter feed that it was "Going to dump some loot found on malaysiaairlines.com servers soon."       

Visitors to the website were re-directed to another page bearing an image of a tuxedo-wearing lizard and reading "Hacked by LIZARD SQUAD -- OFFICIAL CYBER CALIPHATE".
      
It also carried the headline "404 - Plane Not Found", an apparent reference to the airlines' puzzling loss of flight MH370 last year with 239 people aboard which tipped the already struggling carrier into crisis.
      
Media reports said versions of the website takeover in some regions included the wording "ISIL will prevail".
      
Malaysia Airlines released a statement confirming its Internet domain name had been compromised, re-directing users.
      
"At this stage, Malaysia Airlines' web servers are intact," it said, but added it could take nearly 24 hours to fully resolve the issue, which it had reported to Malaysian authorities.
      
"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.
      
The Lizard Squad is a group of hackers that has caused havoc in the online world before, taking credit for attacks that took down the Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live network last month.
      
The extent of any links with the ISIL, however, are not...