Thousands Report Issues as Platform Faces Disruptions
Elon Musk claims X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered a “massive cyber attack” on Monday. Users worldwide reported issues accessing the platform, prompting speculation about the cause.
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk wrote. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”
His comments sparked debate among cybersecurity experts, who questioned the scale and origin of the attack.
Widespread Twitter Outages Reported
Users began reporting problems early in the day. Downdetector.com recorded over 40,000 reports of Twitter outages, with spikes in the morning and around noon.
Many users searched, “Is Twitter down?” and “Is it down right now?” as they struggled to load posts. The majority of complaints—56%—came from the this app, while 33% were related to the website.
Musk later suggested the cyber attack originated from Ukraine.
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Experts Question Musk’s Cyber Attack Claims
Cybersecurity specialists quickly pushed back on Musk’s claims.
Kevin Beaumont, a security researcher, noted on Bluesky, “Musk’s claim is missing a key fact—it was actually IPs from worldwide, not just Ukraine.”
Allan Liska from Recorded Future explained that even if the attack appeared to come from Ukraine, the machines were likely part of a botnet controlled remotely.
Nicholas Reese, a cyber operations expert at New York University, cast doubt on Musk’s theory.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for a state actor to do this,” Reese said. “Something like this was designed to be discovered, which eliminates the likelihood of a state-sponsored attack.”
A History of It Outages
It has faced several major outages since Musk acquired the platform. In March 2023, Twitter outages left users unable to load images and access links.
Some speculate that technical failures, rather than a cyber attack, may have caused the latest It down incident.
Despite Musk’s claim of tracing the attack’s origins, experts believe It will not release technical data to verify his statement.
“The likelihood of it releasing this data is pretty low,” Reese said.
Political Ties and Musk’s Influence
Musk’s statements about Ukraine come amid rising tensions between the country and the Trump administration.
Musk, a strong Trump supporter, recently criticised Ukraine’s leadership, calling President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “evil.” He also warned of a “never-ending war” if a peace deal is not reached.
His latest claim about it being down due to a cyber attack has further fuelled discussions about his political influence.
What’s Next for it?
As users continue to ask, “Is X down right now?” the company has not provided detailed insights into the cause of the outage.
Cybersecurity experts remain sceptical of Musk’s explanation, but the incident highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in social media platforms.
With X facing increasing scrutiny, the debate over security, transparency, and Musk’s leadership continues.
