An unusually powerful outage hit X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, disabling the service for thousands of people around the world. The massive blackout, which sent people flocking to rival service Threads, stopped users from seeing and posting tweets on the app and website.
X owner Elon Musk said the outage was caused by a ‘massive cyberattack’ done by a ‘large, coordinated group’ or a country with ‘a lot of resources’. Musk then sensationally claimed that the attack originated in Ukraine, ‘with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area’.
However, experts have different opinions on the origin of the cyberattack. Security advisor Jake Moore mentioned that it could have originated ‘anywhere’, while Megha Kumar, head of geopolitical risk at CyXcel, said ‘we need a lot more information before we jump to this conclusion’.
The cyberattack is believed to be a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, where the attacker floods a server with internet traffic to prevent users from accessing connected online services and sites.
Various experts have questioned Musk’s claims, with some calling it ‘unconvincing’ and ‘pretty much garbage’. The cybersecurity capabilities of X have also been scrutinized over the incident.
In a surprising turn of events, a pro-Palestinian, Russian-linked hacktivist group called Dark Storm has taken credit for the disruption. The group is known for launching cyber-attacks against entities they believe to be Israel supporters.
Overall, the situation remains complex and experts are urging caution before attributing the cyberattack to any specific entity without concrete evidence.