Air India Twitter account hacked; unbelievable, but group tried to promote rival

Air India passengers got a nasty surprise today when the national carrier's Twitter account started posting messages that were more than startling and which had the potential to cause havoc. It transpired that an individual or a group hacked in to the carrier's official Twitter account, and tried to mislead passengers by  posting messages that said all Air India flights had been cancelled. This forced state-owned carrier Air India on Thursday to spring into action.

It later assured their passengers by saying, that their Twitter account is now fully functional. Air India tweeted saying, "#FlyAI : Early today #AirIndia twitter handle @airindiain was hacked. We would like to inform our passengers, that the handle is fully functional now."

#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.

— Air India (@airindiain) March 15, 2018

It added, "Further there is no cyber security threat on this handle and security measures have been taken. Thank you @Twitter @TwitterIndia." From the tweets of last night, it has been revealed that the individual/group was trying to mislead Air India passengers in a ploy to promote another airline namely, Turkish Airlines. The hackers even changed Air India's twitter handle "@airindiain" to "@airindiaTR"

A pro-Turkish tweet read, "Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim. Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured," reported in The Indian Express. 

While reportedly another tweet stated, "Last minute important announcement: All our flights have been cancelled. From now we will fly with Turkish Airlines.”

Air India earlier issued a statement, saying, all Air India flights are leaving as per their scheduled time. The airline also requested passengers to ignore any misleading messages on their operations.