Elon Musk has claimed that a massive cyberattack on the social media platform X originated from the “Ukraine area.” However, experts have questioned his assertions and cast doubt on the evidence he provided. The outage, which affected over 1.6 million users according to platform monitor Downdetector, was described by Musk as a “massive cyber-attack” in an interview with Fox Business. He suggested that IP addresses traced back to Ukraine were responsible for the disruption.
Cybersecurity experts quickly challenged Musk’s explanation. Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University and former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, called the claims “wholly unconvincing” and “pretty much garbage.”
Prof. Martin believes the outage was likely caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, a simple but effective method where hackers flood a server with internet traffic to prevent users from accessing a website.
He noted that it is unusual for a company of X’s size and standing to be taken down by such an attack. “I can’t think of a company of the size and standing internationally of X that’s fallen over to a DDoS attack for a very long time,” Prof. Martin told BBC Radio 4.
Experts question Musk’s cyberattack evidence
He added that the incident “doesn’t reflect well on their cyber security.”
During the outages, many users encountered loading icons when trying to access and refresh feeds on X’s app and desktop site. Musk, a vocal critic of Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, provided no concrete evidence to support his cyber-attack claim.
Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, which monitors web service connectivity, said their metrics align with what is typically seen in DDoS attacks rather than an internal configuration error. “This is amongst the longest X/Twitter outages we’ve tracked in terms of duration, and the pattern is consistent with a denial of service attack targeting X’s infrastructure at scale,” Toker told the BBC. Musk has previously claimed that X has been targeted by DDoS attacks.
While all major social networks face such attacks, X has a track record of falling victim to them more often than larger platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Cybersecurity specialist Sian John from NCC Group noted a “sharp rise” in DDoS attacks, which are becoming “an increasingly popular tool” for cybercriminals. “Businesses that store large amounts of sensitive data, like tech firms, financial institutions, and healthcare providers, are frequent targets,” she said.
“But any organisation with an online presence is at risk.”
The BBC has approached the embassy in Washington DC for comment on Musk’s claims.
Image Credits: Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash
April Isaacs is a news contributor for DevX.com She is long-term, self-proclaimed nerd. She loves all things tech and computers and still has her first Dreamcast system. It is lovingly named Joni, after Joni Mitchell.
