Elon Musk claimed that a large-scale cyberattack on his social media site, X (previously Twitter), originated from IP addresses that came from Ukraine. Referring in an interview to Fox News, Musk said, “We’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”
The cyber attack, which commenced early Monday morning, resulted in widespread outages in Asia, Europe, and North America. Users in the three regions have been complaining about being unable to access X for hours, said Downdetector, an outage tracking site. Several were complaining about getting intermittent access the whole day.
Elon Musk attributes the Attack to past Cyber Threats.
This is not the first time Musk has accused cyberattacks of causing problems on the platform. He also blamed a cyberattack for an outage last year, which was around the time of a scheduled live-streamed interview with then-President Donald Trump. Musk has been under scrutiny for technical problems and platform disruptions since his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in 2022.
In trying to connect this attack to a wider campaign against him, Musk posted a tweet from the X handle DogeDesigner, which indicated that the attack was one in a series of coordinated efforts to undermine Musk’s leadership. The tweet connected the attack with demonstrations against Musk’s administration of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and acts of sabotage against Tesla facilities.
A Coordinated Attack or Something More?
Musk ventured that the cyberattack must have “tremendous resources” behind it, suggesting that it might be carried out by a nation-state or a large-scale, organized group. Musk went on to expound in a subsequent interview with Fox Business that the computers used in the attack had digital trails that traced back to Ukraine. Cybersecurity professionals have warned, however, that attacks cannot be reliably traced by IP addresses, as attackers can easily mask their locations.
X Struggles to Rebound from Disruption
The cyberattack made more than 40,000 users face connectivity problems, and the platform continued to struggle to rebound from the disruption. With X trying to come back online, users remain unable to access the platform. Musk’s consistent attempts to return X have been marred by constant technical issues and backlash regarding his choices, such as unbanning accounts previously banned for promoting conspiracy theories.