Elon Musk blames Ukraine for X outage amid cyberattack claims
After Monday's outage of the X platform, Elon Musk stated there was a "massive cyberattack." He claimed that the actions were carried out from the "Ukrainian area." "I think there are many reasons to 'frame' the Ukrainians, so to speak. However, it would be better to temper the mood," says Dr. Alek Tarkowski, an expert from Open Future.
On Monday, the X service (formerly Twitter) went down worldwide, significantly hindering access to the platform. Its owner, Elon Musk, claimed that there was a "massive cyberattack."
"We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved," he wrote. Later, in an interview with Fox News, he mentioned that the attacks were carried out "from the Ukrainian area."
What actually happened? According to experts, if there was indeed an attack, it was most likely a DDoS attack. This is one of the most common hacker attacks. It aims to occupy all available resources to disrupt the functioning of the entire service.
"With such attacks, the matter is very unclear. But Musk is speaking as if it is already settled. The very nature of DDoS attacks is extremely complicated," comments Dr. Alek Tarkowski from Open Future.
"Saying that DDoS attacks come from a particular place is very far-fetched. It seems there is a big possible game of interests in accusing Ukraine," adds the expert.
The expert also points out the timing of the cyberattack, which occurred on the eve of American-Ukrainian negotiations in Saudi Arabia. The last few weeks have not been the best for Washington-Kyiv relations.
"One can imagine that it would be a good argument if someone wanted to take some actions, for example, against Ukraine," Dr. Tarkowski says.
"Anyone who pays can use them"
The fact that "Ukrainian IP addresses were observed among the pool of addresses attacking service X does not necessarily mean Ukrainians were behind the attack."
"On the internet, for instance, you can find Ukrainian stressers, which are services strictly dedicated to carrying out DDoS attacks. Anyone who pays can use them. Even a disgruntled American Republican unhappy with the quality of Tesla’s rear camera," who hates Musk, it is stated.
It is also noted that the attacks could have been conducted in such a way as to give the impression that they were conducted from Ukraine.
The hacker group Dark Storm, which holds pro-Palestinian views and has operated in the USA, Israel, and EU countries, claimed responsibility for the attack: "But, like Musk, 'hacker' groups also often deviate from the truth, so it's not necessarily wise to trust such self-attribution."
"For now, it’s safe not to indulge in conspiracy theories and recognize that the only sure thing is that X indeed didn't work yesterday for a significant part of the day. And although much points to the fact that the reason was a DDoS attack, it is impossible to determine based on the currently available evidence who was behind this attack," it is emphasized.
