On Monday, X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced significant outages affecting thousands of users. Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, attributed the disruptions to a “massive cyberattack,” suggesting involvement from a “large, coordinated group and/or a country.” He later indicated that the attacks originated from IP addresses in the “Ukraine area.”
Cybersecurity experts, however, caution against drawing conclusions based solely on IP addresses. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont noted that the attack involved IPs from worldwide locations, not just Ukraine. He identified the assault as a Mirai variant botnet composed of compromised devices like cameras. Allan Liska from Recorded Future added that even if the IP addresses were from Ukraine, they likely belonged to compromised machines controlled by a botnet, making the actual source indeterminate.
User reports of outages peaked at around 10 a.m. Eastern Time, with over 40,000 users affected, according to Downdetector. The disruptions were most severe along the U.S. coasts, with 56% of problems reported for the X app and 33% for the website.
Experts remain skeptical about attributing the attack to a state actor, given the short duration of the outages. Nicholas Reese, a cyber operations expert at New York University, suggested that such temporary disruptions are unlikely to be the work of nation-states, as they typically aim for stealthier operations. He did not rule out the possibility of a group making a statement but noted that a temporary outage is “not much of a statement” without further action.
This incident adds to a series of challenges faced by Musk’s ventures, including a decline in Tesla’s stock and recent issues with SpaceX. Despite these setbacks, Musk remains committed to his various roles, including his position in the Department of Government Efficiency, where he aims to reduce federal spending.
Source: Swifteradio.com
