Malaysia Airlines (MAS) website was inaccessible this morning after hackers defaced the airline's portal and left what purportedly is an Islamic State message.

The message reads "ISIS will prevail", raising concerns the hacking may be linked to the global terrorist network.

The hackers signed off as "Cyber Caliphate" and, strangely, asked users to follow them by subscribing to Twitter handlers @UMG_Chris and @UMGRobert, who are corporate leaders at UMG gaming.

However, a check by Malaysiakini showed that there are several variants of the defaced website served to users, including one that reads "Lizard Squad will prevail".

The variants carried the same image of a lizard in tuxedo and smoking a pipe.

Lizard Squad is a prominent hacking group that was responsible for several incidents of hacking  last year, including against Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox servers.

The move of the hackers to divert visitors from the MAS website to the Twitter accounts of UMG gaming executives appears consistent with its past modus operandi of targeting the game industry.

UMG gaming is a platform that sells computer games online.

However, it remains unclear if the ISIS message is merely a red herring.

Lizard Squad, which uses the Twitter handle @LizardMafia, indicated that it was responsible for the hacking.

The group also suggested that it may have obtained data from the MAS servers.

"Going to dump some loot found on http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/ servers soon," it said in a posting.

Earlier in the day, Lizard Squad mentioned the UMG gaming executives on Twitter , before later saying: "Cooking up something special."

You may experience difficulty accessing our website. We are currently working on resolving the issue. To book fares: http://t.co/tV2iIvlYxt

— Malaysia Airlines (@MAS) January 26, 2015

The group then posted Malaysia Airlines' website before it went down and was replaced with defaced versions diverting users to the Twitter accounts of UMG gaming executives.