‘Al-Toufan’ Hackers Take Down Bahrain International Airport Website

A hacking group known as Al-Toufan has claimed responsibility for attacks on the websites of Bahrain’s international airport, state news agency and chamber of commerce.

Al Toufan – “The Flood” in Arabic – took down the Bahrain International Airport site on Tuesday, along with the sites of the state-run Bahrain News Agency and the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce, reports The Associated Press.

The hackers also attacked Akhbar Al Khaleej, a pro-government newspaper in Bahrain, tampering with articles on the website before taking it offline.

While most targets are back online (albeit some sporadically), the Akhbar Al Khaleej newspaper appears to be offline still.

The group bragged about the hacks online, posting screenshots of the downed websites, saying the move was “in support of the revolution of our oppressed people of Bahrain.”

It is unclear if the perpetrators forged their attack using malware or the traditional denial-of-service method where the target website is flooded with requests until it fails to load for users.

“A number of Government agency websites have today been the target of malicious cyber-attacks,” Bahrain government officials told reporters. “Government operations were unaffected by the attacks and work is ongoing to restore access to the targeted websites.”

The Al-Toufan operators are said to be the same hackers who targeted government websites during November elections that were boycotted by a banned opposition group.

The attack on the Bahrain International Airport website likely left some passengers scrambling for answers, possibly even causing issues with their trips to or from the Middle-Eastern island country.

The airline’s social feeds make no mention of the attack and the company has yet to officially acknowledge the hack, as its website is still suffering sporadic downtimes at the time of this writing.