Was it a hack attack? Something just happened to Housing.com

In what could be either some kind of internal hack by employees revolting against former CEO Rahul Yadav's sacking, or some kind of whimsical promotion gone horrible wrong, the visitors to Housing.com were surprised by the website.

Around 4:30 PM on Monday, Housing.com, the $250 million real-estate portal recently in news for the public sacking of Rahul Yadav, it's IIT-dropout CEO, showed a cryptic message.

'Yes! We will solve real estate, but 10X better with The Chief Architect.' it read. This was followed by a series of incomprehensible equations, possibly a code of sorts for Housing.com employees, and ended with: 'We've achieved a lot in the last 3 years, but the game has just begun. Yet, We are hungry for all!l :)' (sic).

At the top of the message were two hashtags: #rahulyadav and #housingdown.

The site was down for just under ten minutes before it was restored -- and then it went down again, this time for the better part of an hour.

On Twitter, the speculation was that the hack was internal, possibly done by Rahul Yadav supporters, who were miffed about his sacking last week. Yadav attempted to distance himself from the controversy by writing #NotInvolved on his Facebook page. But he didn't help matters by writing #LoveYouTechTeam in the same post, adding fuel to the rumours of an interal hack.

Housing.com has been gripped by controversy every since its 26-year-old founder and former CEO Yadav wrote a resignation letter on April 30 to board members and investors questioning their 'intellectual capability'. Yadav later apologised and withdrew his resignation.

Last week, Housing.com formally let Yadav go and issued a statement stating that his behaviour towards investors, the ecosystem and the media as the key reasons for his sacking. 'The Board believes that his behaviour is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company known for its innovative approach to product development,' it said.

A Housing.com spokesperson said that the company did not have a statement about the hack.