PUMA India Website Sparks Online Frenzy Hours Before The Black Friday Sale! Here's What Actually Happened

Cyber Attack, or a gimmick? Well, social media was in for a surprise when their favourite brand PUMA¡¯s website showed sudden signs of security breach with multiple glitches including tampered brand logo and hijacked images of ambassadors Virat Kohli, Mary Kom, Yuvraj Singh and Sunil Chhetri and replaced with photos of their lookalikes since 4 pm on Wednesday.

This suspected cyber-attack came to light when a section of users on Instagram took to their social media handles to share their confusion and reactions to the errors seen on the brand¡¯s shopping website.

¡°Website down @pumaindia¡±; ¡°So many errors???? All good @pumaindia¡±; and ¡°@pumaindia What is Going On?¡± were just some of the reactions by netizens, as they expressed concern and confusion.

Puma India

PUMA¡¯s brand ambassadors also reacted to the sudden replacement of their images with photos of their doppelgangers and used their social media handles to notify PUMA and even call out the imposters.

Former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh, in a post on his social media handle, wrote, ¡°Wait, what is happening here @pumaindia? Yeh sasta Yuvraj kaun hai? Maine dates nahi di thi kya?!¡± (Who is this wannabe Yuvraj? Didn¡¯t I give you any dates?

Puma India

Indiatimes reached out to the brand to clarify the matter. PUMA India informed that the cyber-hacked look of the website was just a part of an interesting marketing gimmick by the sportswear giant ahead of the sale day. ¡°The glitch on the website of PUMA India was a pure play by the brand as part of its Black Friday promotional activity and not a case of cyber hacking or server malfunction in the region,¡± said Shreya Sachdev, Head of Marketing at PUMA India.

Well gimmick or not, Gen-Z sure knows how to go into an overdrive on social media!