What Caused the X Outage That Musk Is Blaming on Ukraine?

Social media platform X was hit by a series of outages yesterday, leaving users unable to access the site for several hours. The outage, which began at around 14:00 CET and lasted until late afternoon, has sparked speculation about its cause, with Elon Musk attributing it to a "massive cyberattack" stemming from Ukraine.

However, experts are skeptical of Musk's claim, suggesting that the disruption was likely caused by a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. Toby Lewis, head of threat analysis at UK-based cybersecurity firm Darktrace, described the X outage as a "fairly standard DDoS attack", which involves many devices flooding a server or network with traffic to overwhelm and shut it down.

According to Lewis, these sorts of attacks are almost always delivered by botnets - globally distributed networks of computers that have been unknowingly recruited to take part in the attack, typically through some form of compromise or the use of malware. This means that even if the IP addresses did originate from Ukraine, as Musk claimed, it doesn't necessarily mean the attack has any link to the country or its government.

Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at Slovakian firm ESET, highlighted the method's ability to conceal the culprits' identities. "DDoS attacks are a clever way of targeting a website without having to hack into the mainframe and therefore the perpetrators can remain largely anonymous and difficult to point a finger at," he said.

While Musk has not provided any evidence to back up his claims, analysts believe that finding the culprits behind yesterday's attack will be a tall order. The X outage is just the latest in a series of glitches on the platform since Musk took over, with the last major outage occurring in August last year.

However, this incident has sparked renewed controversy surrounding Musk's role in the US government and his open support of far-right politicians. Tesla stock fell to a five-year low on Monday amid protests and arson attacks against the EV brand, which many see as symbolic of Musk, the company's CEO and founder. Analysts have linked Tesla's fallout to Musk's increasingly incendiary behaviour.

A report last week found that Tesla sales in Germany fell 70% in February, off the back of a 60% sales slump in January. Analysts have also highlighted concerns about Musk's role in Europe, with officials considering replacing Starlink, a subsidiary of his firm SpaceX, with a homegrown alternative due to mounting concerns about putting the continent's security in the hands of a single, private network.

As the investigation into yesterday's X outage continues, one thing is clear: Musk's antics have put him at the center of controversy once again. With tensions running high over his role in the US government and his support for far-right politicians, it remains to be seen how this latest incident will play out.

The Fallout Continues

Tesla sales in Germany fell 70% in February, off the back of a 60% sales slump in January. Analysts have linked Tesla's fallout to Musk's increasingly incendiary behaviour.

In Europe, Musk has openly endorsed Germany's far-right AfD, even hosting an interview on X where he heaped praise on the party's leader Alice Weidel. At the Trump inauguration on January 20, Musk made a controversial hand gesture, which many likened to a Nazi salute.

"There is no doubt that 'the Musk factor' has influenced Tesla's sales in the same way as his reputation impacted Twitter when he bought it and rebranded it as X," Andrew Fellows, an automotive industry expert at Star, a tech consultancy firm, previously told TNW.