Cyber attack claimed behind X service outage
On Monday, the service on the X platform was disrupted for several hours, causing difficulties for thousands of users. During this, Elon Musk claimed that there were large-scale cyber attacks on his social media platform. According to Musk, the attack was carried out using very large resources and either a large group or a country may be involved behind it.
Musk’s claims and expert opinion
Elon Musk wrote in a post, “We are attacked every day, but this attack was quite large.” He also indicated that the attack could be through IP addresses originating from the Ukraine region, although did not share much information about it. Cybersecurity experts commenting on this said that it is not necessary that the attack came from Ukraine itself, as IP addresses can be linked to many places.
Experts described it as an attack by the Mirai variant botnet, which used compromised cameras. Meanwhile, some other security experts also pointed out that these botnets may be spread across different parts of the world and not just one country.
Downtime and users’ problems
According to the Downdetector website, the outage started at 6 am on Monday and its effect increased by 10 am. More than 40,000 users complained that they were unable to access the X platform. The situation improved by mid-day and complaints came in thousands, but the service was down again on US shores for about an hour in the afternoon.
Can there be a government role in X cyber attack?
Cyber operations expert Nicholas Reese of New York University questioned Musk’s claims, saying that it is difficult to verify them without any technical data. He said that the involvement of a government actor in such a short-term interruption is unlikely, unless it is a precursor to a major incident.
Is there a big threat?
According to Reese, there are two types of cyber attacks: those that come out in the open and those that are done secretly. He said that usually the most valuable attacks are those that are done very quietly and such disruptions do not seem to pose much of a threat. However, it is possible that a group is trying to convey a message through this disruption.
Earlier outages
In March 2023, when X was formerly known as Twitter, the service was disrupted for more than an hour, with links stopping working and users facing problems logging in. Apart from this, many users started visiting other social media sites like BlueSky, where “X outage” was trending.
Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and is now running both X and Tesla company. He also has access to US government data systems and is often involved in technical support.
It is clear from this entire incident that cyber attacks remain a serious challenge in today’s digital age. However, all the claims and possibilities related to such disruptions are not fully verified, and it remains to be seen whether any major changes or protective steps are taken in the future.
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