New Delhi: The Twitter account of Air India (@airindiain) was hacked on March 15 morning with a Turkish group claiming responsibility for the act. The account was restored by noon.
“Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim. Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured,” read another tweet on the compromised account. Soon the account’s handle was changed to @airindiaTR, following which it lost its blue verification badge. @airindiain has over 1.4 lakh followers on the microblogging network.
Some Turkish language tweets were posted from the hacked account. One in English read: “Last minute important announcement. All our flights have been cancelled. From now on, we will fly with Turkish Airlines.”
Shortly after noon, the public carrier tweeted that “security measures have been taken” and there was no further cyber-security threat on the handle. “#FlyAI : Early today #AirIndia twitter handle @airindiain was hacked. We would like to inform our passengers, that the handle is fully functional now. Further there is no cyber security threat on this handle and security measures have been taken. Thank you @Twitter @TwitterIndia,” @airindiain tweeted, its verification badge restored.
Ayyildiz Tim is a Turkish hacker group that had claimed responsibility for compromising the Twitter accounts of Indian public figures such as economist Kaushik Basu, actor Anupam Kher and politician Kiran Bedi this February. Before that, the group had targeted the Twitter account of India’s ambassador to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin. They had also targeted the Twitter account of World Economic Forum president Borge Brende.
India Tribune, as an English weekly newspaper, was launched in 1977 in Chicago by its publisher Prashant Shah with a lofty ideal to serve the Asian Indian community in the USA. Over the years, it has grown with all vigor, and now it is being published in three editions – Chicago, New York and Atlanta. India Tribune, a journal of its kind for the family in the USA, has been a household name for many Indians for over three decades with each issue commanding a readership of over 125,000.
