X Faces Massive Outage Amid Cyber-Attack Claims by Elon Musk
🐝 Buzzing News Alert! Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) experienced widespread outages on Monday morning, affecting thousands of users across the US and UK. The outage left many users unable to access their feeds or refresh the app and desktop site, leaving them stuck with an endless loading icon.
Outage Impact and User Reports
Platform monitoring service Downdetector reported tens of thousands of technical issue complaints from US users. In the UK, outage reports spiked past 8,000 shortly before 14:00 GMT, following an earlier surge that morning. For some, the connection issues stretched well into the afternoon.
Musk’s Cyber-Attack Allegations
Elon Musk quickly responded to the outage, claiming it was the result of a “massive cyber-attack” originating from “the Ukraine area.” However, he provided no evidence to support this claim and did not clarify if he believed a state actor was behind the attack.
In a post on X, Musk speculated that “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.” Later, in an interview with Fox Business, he reiterated his belief that the attack was a deliberate effort to take down the platform.
The BBC has reached out to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, DC, for comment regarding Musk’s allegations.
Cybersecurity Experts Weigh In
Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, an organization that tracks internet disruptions, noted that the patterns observed were consistent with a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, rather than an internal coding or configuration error.
“This outage matches the characteristics of previous large-scale DDoS attacks, rather than a simple glitch,” Toker told the BBC. “We’ve tracked multiple six-hour-long global outages on Monday, making this one of the longest X/Twitter disruptions in recent history.”
A DDoS attack works by overwhelming a website with excessive internet traffic, effectively rendering it unusable. While Musk has previously claimed that X has been targeted by such attacks, these have not been independently verified.
Musk’s Social Media Clash with Senator Mark Kelly
Amid the chaos, Musk clashed with US Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) on X. The billionaire called Kelly a “traitor” after the senator visited Ukraine over the weekend and voiced his continued support for the country.
Sen. Kelly fired back, saying: “Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”
The exchange quickly gained attention, further fueling ongoing debates surrounding Musk’s stance on Ukraine and global cybersecurity threats.
🐝 The Hive is Still Watching! Was this truly a cyber-attack? Or just another major outage for X? Drop your thoughts below! 👇✨
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