Cybersecurity Cloud & Data

X outage: “X remains one of the most talked about platforms making it a typical target for hackers marking their own territory”

Yesterday, Elon Musk’s social media site X experienced three separate outages, which Musk attributed to a “massive cyberattack,” writes NBC News. The first outage occurred around 5:30 a.m. ET, followed by another at 9:30 a.m., and a third at 11:10 a.m.

Read more: Cybersecurity challenges for startups & how to overcome them

Thousands of users reported issues during these times. Musk suggested that the attack was highly coordinated, possibly involving a large group or a country. Experts believe the outages were consistent with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which overwhelms a site with traffic to knock it offline.

X remains one of the most talked about platforms making it a typical target for hackers marking their own territory. All that can be done to future proof their networks is to continue to expect the unexpected and build even more robust DDoS protection layers.“ — Jake Moore, Global Security Advisor at ESET

Jake Moore, Global Security Advisor at ESET, says given the popularity of X, this isn’t a surprise, and not much can be done about it.

“X remains one of the most talked about platforms making it a typical target for hackers marking their own territory. All that can be done to future proof their networks is to continue to expect the unexpected and build even more robust DDoS protection layers,” he says.

“Cybercriminals attack from all angles and are incredibly fearless in their attempts. DDoS attacks are a clever way of targeting a company without having to hack into the mainframe and the perpetrators can remain largely anonymous. This makes it that much more difficult to protect from when the landscape is completely unknown apart from having generic DDoS protection. However, even with such protection, each year threat actors become better equipped and use even more IP addresses such as home IoT device to flood systems making it increasingly more difficult to protect from,” he added.

As per Platform monitor Downdetector there were over 1.6 M reports of problems with the social media site from users globally on Monday.

Read more: The evolving role of the CISO in 2025: Succeeding in the constantly changing cyber threat landscape

“We’re not sure exactly what happened but there was a massive cyber-attack to try and bring down the X system with IP [Internet Protocol] addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” Musk said in an interview with the Fox Business channel.

However, experts are saying that Musk’s claim that the outage was caused by hackers in Ukraine is doubtful, according to BBC.

Navanwita Bora Sachdev

Navanwita is the editor of The Tech Panda who also frequently publishes stories in news outlets such as The Indian Express, Entrepreneur India, and The Business Standard

Recent Posts

From UPI to Web3: How India’s fintech wave is reshaping the future of payments

India’s fintech sector is accelerating at breakneck speed, with digital payments becoming the new default…

3 days ago

AI Launches: SaaS, content management, ecommerce, cybersecurity, logistics, entertainment, & investment

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent launches in the superfast field of Artificial…

5 days ago

M&A: The art of the deal

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent mergers and acquisitions within various tech ecosystems…

6 days ago

AI companion: From comfort to concern, are we flirting with “Addictive Intelligence”?

Strange are the ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been offering us humans companionship.…

1 week ago

Bitcoin Surges Revive Old Questions, but Discipline Outshines the Mania

Every time Bitcoin summits a new high price, the collective room does the same dance:…

1 week ago

Indian space: Private players fuel satellite refueling & earth observation boom

India’s space sector is stepping boldly into a new era, with private players taking center…

1 week ago