The social media platform X experienced a significant outage Monday, disrupting access for thousands of users worldwide.
Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, confirmed the incident was the result of a targeted cyberattack, describing it as unusually severe.
"There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X," he said on the platform. "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."
The attack, which began early Monday, caused intermittent disruptions, with reports peaking at over 26,000 incidents in the U.S. alone, according to outage tracker Downdetector.
Functionality was restored for many users within 30 to 45 minutes, though Musk suggested the assault might still be ongoing.
Speculation on X points to the hacking group Dark Storm Team, which reportedly claimed responsibility via Telegram for a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, though this remains unverified.
"Well, we're not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area."
Musk indicated that efforts to trace the attack’s origins are underway, raising concerns about the potential involvement of a nation-state or a well-funded collective.
"It doesn’t make sense for Zelensky to do this in the middle of the negotiation — this sounds like Russian hacks either operating from Ukraine or masked IP addresses," said one X user.
The incident marks the third major disruption for X in recent months, underscoring the platform’s ongoing fight against cyber threats.
Neither Musk nor X has provided further details on the attack’s impact or perpetrators as investigations continue.
