X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, faced major outages on Monday, causing disruptions for users around the world. According to Downdetector.com, the platform experienced widespread issues starting at 5:40 a.m. ET, with users reporting difficulties loading posts and receiving error messages like “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”
Despite temporarily resuming service later in the morning, X encountered additional outages at 10 a.m. ET, peaking with 40,000 reports of issues. The outages persisted throughout the day, with another notable disruption occurring at 1 p.m. ET. Competitors such as Bluesky and Thread did not experience any similar problems on Monday.
Newsweek reported that a hacking group known as Dark Storm Team took credit for launching a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on X. The group, originally formed as a pro-Palestinian collective in 2023, has targeted various government websites of NATO countries, Israel, and its allies in the past.
Cloudflare, a prominent cybersecurity company, noted that indicators of a DDoS attack include abnormal levels of internet traffic that overwhelm a website or service, causing it to slow down or become inaccessible. This type of attack typically involves flooding the target with a large number of bots to disrupt normal operations.
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who acquired Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and rebranded it as X, acknowledged the attack and vowed to investigate its source. In a tweet on Monday afternoon, Musk revealed, “There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X. 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. Tracing …”
Musk, who also serves as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), emphasized the severity of the attack and the potential involvement of well-resourced adversaries.
As X continues to grapple with the aftermath of the cyberattack, users are advised to exercise caution and remain vigilant against potential security threats. The platform’s technical team is working diligently to address the issues and restore normal functionality for its global user base. Stay tuned for further updates on this developing story.