Musk’s Allegation: Ukraine Behind X Cyber Attack; Platform Down for Over 3 Hours
Elon Musk has alleged that Ukraine was behind the recent cyberattack on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
In an interview with Larry Kudlow on Fox News, Musk stated, “We are not entirely sure what happened, but a large-scale cyberattack was launched from Ukrainian-originated IP addresses to take down the X system.”
On Monday, X experienced three major outages, causing inconvenience to users worldwide.
- The first outage occurred around 3:30 PM, lasting for approximately 30 minutes.
- The second outage happened at 7:00 PM, lasting for one hour.
- The third outage took place from 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM.
At 10:55 PM IST, Musk posted on X: “X has been targeted by a massive cyberattack. While we face such attacks daily, this time, they originated from multiple sources. Either a major group or a nation is responsible for this attack.”
Users reported issues with the website, app, and server connections. Throughout the day, DownDetector recorded:
- 3,000+ complaints from India
- 18,000+ complaints from the U.S.
- 10,000+ complaints from the U.K.
What is DownDetector?
DownDetector.in is a platform that tracks real-time outages of websites and online services.
User Complaints: 41% Faced App Connection Issues
According to DownDetector:
- 40% of users faced app-related issues.
- 52% of users experienced website access problems.
- 7% of users reported server connection failures.
Two Recent X Outages
- April 26, 2024: X went down at 1:15 PM, with 145 users reporting issues. Users faced problems accessing both the app and website.
- December 21, 2023: A global outage occurred, affecting users worldwide, including India. From 11:00 AM, users saw the message “Welcome to X” instead of posts.
X Has Over 330 Million Users
According to Statista, X has approximately 330 million users worldwide:
- 95 million users in the U.S.
- 27 million users in India
- 500 million posts are made daily
X was originally launched in July 2006.
Elon Musk Acquired X in 2022
On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X) for $44 billion, equivalent to approximately ₹3.84 lakh crore at current exchange rates.
After the acquisition, Musk fired four top executives:
- CEO Parag Agrawal
- CFO Ned Segal
- Legal Executive Vijaya Gadde
- General Counsel Sean Edgett
In June 2023, Linda Yaccarino was appointed CEO of X. Previously, she served as the Chair of Global Advertising and Partnerships at NBCUniversal.
