Experts Dispute Musk's Claim: Did Ukraine Cause X's Massive Outage?

On Monday, the social media platform X experienced a significant outage, with over 1.6 million users reporting issues globally. Elon Musk attributed this disruption to a cyber-attack allegedly initiated by hackers in Ukraine. However, this claim has been met with skepticism from cybersecurity experts.

Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford and former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, dismissed Musk’s assertion as ‘wholly unconvincing’ and ‘pretty much garbage.’ He indicated that the incident likely stemmed from a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, where hackers overwhelm a server with traffic, a method considered relatively unsophisticated and common.

The outages left many users facing a loading screen while trying to access the platform. Musk, criticizing Ukraine, claimed that either a larger coordinated group or a nation might be involved, yet he failed to provide any concrete proof for his allegations. Experts like Alp Toker from Netblocks noted that the disruption aligns with patterns observed during past DDoS attacks rather than being due to technical errors on the platform itself.

This recent incident is noted as one of the most prolonged outages for X, with issues persisting for over six hours. The rise in DDoS attacks has been highlighted as a growing threat, affecting various organizations, particularly those with substantial online footprints.

Nonetheless, X’s susceptibility to these attacks is raising concerns about its cybersecurity measures, especially compared to larger social media platforms. In 2023, X faced a similar attack from a hacker group, emphasizing the vulnerability of such platforms. As DDoS attacks continue to rise, cyber experts warn that any organization with an online presence is at risk.