On Monday, social media platform X struggled with outages caused by a massive cyber attack that may have originated in Ukraine. Elon Musk called the attack particularly powerful and well-coordinated, with implications for the geopolitical situation.
A large number of American media are writing about the attack. Musk admitted not knowing exactly how the outage occurred but spoke of a large-scale attack to take down the X-system, with IP addresses that appeared to originate from the Ukraine region. He made his statements during an interview for Fox Business Network.
Musk added that X experiences daily attacks but that this attack was particularly large-scale and well-coordinated, possibly carried out by a large group or even a country. Musk indicated that his team was working to trace the perpetrators. The exact origin and responsibility of the attack remain unclear for now.
X-App caused most complaints
According to Downdetector, an online platform that monitors service outages, thousands of users reported problems using X on Monday morning. The first outage began around 6:00 a.m. (ET), with more than 22,000 users reporting no access.
Most of the complaints involved the app, but website users also experienced problems. After a brief recovery period, a second outage occurred around 9:30 a.m., with the number of reports rising to 37,000. Later in the day, reports began to decrease, but around noon, the number of complaints rose again to more than 34,000.
Unfortunate timing
The outages were unfortunate for National Football League (NFL) fans, as the “legal tampering” period began just yesterday. During this period, teams typically announce transactions, upcoming contracts and other athletic developments. Normally, sports journalists spread this news via X, but due to the ongoing outages, they had to use alternative channels.
Despite the significant impact on users, X restored most of its service during the afternoon. By 2:30 p.m. (ET), USA TODAY journalists could log back in, although some features remained temporarily unavailable.
Musk’s allegations that Ukraine may have been involved in the attack come at a time of geopolitical tension between the U.S. and Ukraine. Last week, President Donald Trump halted the supply of U.S. weapons to Ukraine and temporarily cut off all aid. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has not yet responded to Musk’s allegations.