On Tuesday morning Facebook Incs social networking website went offline for nearly an hour after what the company said was the introduction of an update.
Facebooks chat and dating applications, Aim and Tinder, were also down alongside with its photo-sharing website Instagram. Services that allow customers to use their social networks information to login onto their platforms were also affected by the worldwide outage.
The services went offline from around 6.10 am to 7.10 am GMT, denying access to Facebooks 1.35 billion active users. People who tried to use the service were greeted by the error message: “Sorry, something went wrong. Were working on it and well get it fixed as soon as we can.”
A group of hackers calling themselves LizardSquad claimed responsibility for the outage, tweeting: “Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, AIM, Hipchat #offline #LizardSquad”.
The Finish cyber group has previously claimed attacks on gaming platforms, including Microsofts Xbox Live and Sonys PlayStation.
LizardSquad was also linked to yesterdays hacking of Malaysia Airlines. The carriers website was unable to book flights or provide services of any kind. For several hours the web page was displaying “404-Plane Not Found” and “Hacked by Cyber Caliphate” along with a picture of a lizard wearing a tuxedo and a top hat.
The airlines website was also displaying “Isis will prevail” at the top left corner. The hacker group has claimed to be related to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
However, Facebook denied the outage being caused by a hacker attack.
“Earlier today many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram. This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems. We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone,” a company spokesman said.
The service disruption came at a time when companies are stressing over cyber security. Late last year Sonys movie division was hit by a hacker attack, which was linked to North Korea, shutting down the companys network for days and stealing vast amounts of information, including employees personal information.
Due to the attack Sony Picture Entertainment canceled the release of its comedy “The Interview”. Last week Sony Corp also asked Japanese regulators to extend its reporting period, because it was unable to release performance figures of its movie division within the deadline due to the damage done by the hacker attack.
Facebook Inc lost 0.43% on Monday and closed at $77.50 on the NASDAQ, marking a one-year increase of 42.32%. The company is valued at $216.04 billion. On Tuesday the stock fell 0.79% during pre-market trading at 12:48 GMT.
According to the Financial Times, the 43 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Facebook have a median target of $90.00, with a high estimate of $105.00 and a low estimate of $57.54. The median estimate represents a 16.14% increase from the last close price.
TradingPedia.com is a financial media specialized in providing daily news and education covering Forex, equities and commodities. Our academies for traders cover 
