Official Twitter account of Air India hacked for a brief duration

New Delhi:  The official Twitter account of Indian carrier Air India was reportedly hacked by suspected Turkish hackers on Thursday, leading to confusion among passengers for a short while. On early Thursday morning, the verified account that has over thousands of followers seemed to be in Turkish possession as it showed Turkish posts and pictures. The cover photo got changed to that of Turkish Airline and tweets in Turkish language appeared on the wall. Pro-Turkish tweets and threatening tweets were shared from the account. Fake tweets about flight cancellation were also shared. A tweet that read , “Last minute important announcement: All our flights have been cancelled. From now we will fly with Turkish Airlines,”, baffled many passengers. Image: Twitter Image: Twitter Image: Twitter The verified blue tick of the handle was removed. Twitter usually removes the verification mark from any such account for a brief time when a verified user's handle is changed. However now the Air India handle has come clean with the blue tick and the tweets too have apparently been deleted. Though unconfirmed,  Turkish elements are suspected to be behind the hack. As repoprted by ANI, one of the retweets claimed that the Air India account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim. The tweet reads, “Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim.Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured." The profile of the page reads, "Ayyildiz Tim Ozel Operasyon Ekibi." This profile has shared the images of the tweets that were retweeted when the handle was hacked.

Ingiltere parlemento uyesi Chuka Umunna @ChukaUmunna tarafimizca hacklenmistir. Türk'ün gucunu goreceksiniz ???????????? Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyıldız Tim. Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured! pic.twitter.com/7wAzOjgOZ4

— AyyıldızTim (@AyyildizOrg132) March 9, 2018

Twitter users too reacted to the hack.

Looks like the #AirIndia account has been hacked by some Turkish fellows.. All sorts of nonsense being posted.. @TwitterIndia Kindly note.. #avgeek pic.twitter.com/l7bmV7oO8v

— Prateek Roy (@prateektweeting) March 14, 2018

#AirIndia @jayantsinha @rsprasad @narendramodi @PMOIndia do the needful our @airindiaTR Ac has been hacked by Turkish hackers

— Amit Parida (@AmitParida1987) March 14, 2018