In Pics: Turkish hackers break into Air India’s Twitter account, tweet ‘All flights cancelled’
Air India’s official account was hacked by suspected Turkish hackers early morning on Thursday
The official Twitter account of national carrier Air India was hacked by suspected Turkish hackers on Thursday. The verified account, which has around 1.5 lakh followers, has been restored as of publishing this.
Hackers broke into the Air India’s official Twitter account early on Thursday, posting messages in Turkish language, including flight cancellation announcements.
In addition, the cover photo of the account was changed to that of Turkish Airline and the handle was changed from @airindiain to @airindiaTR.
The hackers tweeted ‘All our flights have been cancelled’ from Air India’s official account
“Last minute important announcement. All our flights have been cancelled. From now on, we will fly with Turkish Airlines,” read one of the messages from the hackers.
The group “I ayyAldAzt” claimed to be a Turkish Cypriot Army on their Twitter handle.
“Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim. Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured,” read another tweet before the official Air India Twitter handle was restored.
The hackers tweeted in Turkish
The ‘verified’ blue tick was temporarily removed from the account as per the micro-blogging platform’s SOP. Twitter disables the blue tick when the ‘handle’ of a verified account is changed.
According to a senior airline official, Air India has commenced its investigation into the matter.
“The official Twitter handle has been restored (after it was hacked). We have commenced our investigation into the matter,” an official told news agency IANS.
Meanwhile, the national carrier issued an official statement confirming the hack.
Official statement by Air India about the hack
“The Air India official Twitter handle @airindiain has been hacked late last night with a malafide intent to mislead passengers…All malicious content was removed on war footing. It is expected that normalcy would be restored soon,” it read.
It also assured passengers that the hack did not have any impact on the flight schedule.
“Air India flights are operating as per schedule. Passengers are requested to ignore any misleading and mischevious communication on our operations,” it added.
