X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, experienced a significant global outage on Monday, with its owner, Elon Musk, alleging that the disruption was due to a "massive cyber-attack." The incident triggered widespread reports of issues among users across the United States and the United Kingdom, which were noted by outage monitoring service Downdetector.

According to Downdetector, tens of thousands of users reported technical issues, with over 8,000 outage reports from the UK alone just before 2:00 PM GMT. Users experienced difficulties accessing the platform, encountering a persistent loading icon when attempting to refresh feeds on both the app and desktop site.

In a post on X, Musk stated, “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” adding that he believed the attack could involve “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country." His comments hinted at the severity of the incident, speculating that it could be indicative of an ongoing cyber-threat. Further insights from Alp Toker, director of the internet monitoring firm Netblocks, supported Musk's claims, suggesting that the patterns observed were consistent with previous denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks rather than mere technical glitches.

Musk elaborated on the situation during an interview with Fox Business Network, indicating that the cyber-attack was reportedly traced back to IP addresses originating in Ukraine. He stated, “Well, we don’t know exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system.” This assertion was corroborated by cybersecurity group SpyoSecure, which revealed that the hacking group Dark Storm Team had claimed responsibility for the attack, confirming that they had initiated a DDoS attack on the platform.

A DDoS attack involves overwhelming a website with fake traffic, effectively creating a traffic jam that prevents legitimate users from accessing the site. Musk's statement captured the widespread frustrations of users, many of whom were unable to log into their accounts or encountered error messages indicating that "something went wrong."

As reports of the outage settled, neither Musk nor X's support team had provided specific updates regarding the restoration of services as of the latest reports. The incident has reignited discussions about the security practices of social media platforms and the ongoing threats they face in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Since Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform in late 2022, X has become a focal point for controversy, facing criticism over its verification methods and Musk's contentious approach to free speech. Although Musk has suggested the platform has regularly faced cyber threats, the scale of the current disruption has drawn heightened attention to both the security infrastructure of X and the geopolitical factors potentially at play.

Source: Noah Wire Services