X is experiencing a prolonged outage. According to Elon Musk, it’s a result of a cyberattack orchestrated from Ukraine, while another group claims responsibility for the attack.
The outage began yesterday and seems to be continuing today. Those trying to open a post receive a message that the post cannot be loaded. Between the outages, Elon Musk has been able to respond on the platform. He speaks of a ‘large, coordinated attack’ against the platform.
In an interview with his favorite TV channel Fox News, Musk wants to share more information. According to Musk, the attack was set up ‘from a large number of IP addresses from Ukraine’, a statement that is not insensitive given the recent geopolitical developments between the two countries. Musk further says that his platform regularly faces DDoS attacks, but that the scale of this attack is unprecedented. He provides little further evidence for his claims.
Dispute over Starlink
Coincidentally or not, Musk fought one of his many digital skirmishes with the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs over the weekend regarding the use of Starlink in Ukraine. Musk threatened to deny the Ukrainian military access to the Starlink network. Eutelsat presents itself as a European alternative, but Starlink is now an important technology for the military.
However, the attack is claimed by the hacker group Dark Storm. This activist group operates from pro-Palestinian motives and has not openly involved itself in the conflict in Ukraine until now. The group claims the scalp of X via Telegram channels. The reliability of Telegram claims often needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.
It therefore remains unclear what is happening at X. The outage peaked yesterday afternoon, but reports on Downdetector show that the platform is not yet fully operational.