<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Elon Musk's X was hit by waves of outages earlier on Monday, which the billionaire claims was due to a cyberattack with IP addresses originating in Ukraine.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We're not sure exactly what happened," Musk said during a Fox Business interview on Monday afternoon.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area."</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/lyle-and-erik-menendez-la-district-attorney-says-he-wont-support-resentencing-the-menendez-brothers-because-they-lied/afbc8dfa-e9ae-4562-a85e-cbd3bf0bb786" target="_blank"><strong><span>LA district attorney says he won't support resentencing the Menendez brothers because they lied</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Musk did not give any further details about the origin of the attack, including whether he believes it was connected to the Ukrainian government.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It is possible to mask IP addresses and make it seem as though the traffic is coming from elsewhere, and spoofing locations is often offered by hackers-for-hire.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>According to outage tracking site DownDetector, the problems began around 6am local time when up to 20,538 users reported problems.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/elon-musk-x-hit-by-outages-he-claims-massive-cyberattack/5d79f0de-019c-46e5-b643-3432d4419975" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The issues temporarily died down before nearly 40,000 users reported outages at 10am.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Outages reported on DownDetector began to drop around 2pm and trailed off throughout the afternoon.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Many users on DownDetector said the platform wouldn't load, and the outage appeared to be global, according to DownDetector's international sites.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>During the Fox Business interview, which aired during the 4pm hour, Musk said platform was working again.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>DownDetector data is self-reported, meaning it doesn't fully represent the outage's scale.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/extropical-cyclone-alfred-police-rescue-woman-from-car-in-queensland-floodwaters/478f556c-3972-4307-8f11-5f3a43033004" target="_blank"><strong><span>Police wade through deep floodwaters to save woman trapped in car</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>CNN has reached out to X, though the company doesn't usually respond to press inquiries.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Musk posted on X early Monday afternoon that he believed "a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved," though the source of motivation behind the attack wasn't confirmed.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Musk also replied "Yes" to a post on X suggesting people are trying to silence the billionaire and his platform, although no further details about the service disruption, including whether it was caused by a targeted attack, have been revealed.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Eric Noonan, CEO of cybersecurity provider CyberSheath, told CNN that it's likely too early to tell if an attack caused the issues.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"One of the things that should always be taken with a grain of salt is any statements made in the short period of time, immediately after, or even in this case during an attack," Noonan said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Musk has a history of attributing technical snafus to cyberattacks.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When his conversation with Donald Trump on X started 42 minutes late in August 2024, he said there was a "probability" of an attack.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"Given the prominence of this conversation, there was of course a 100 per cent probability of DDOS attacks," Musk posted on the social media platform at the time.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>DDOS stands for "distributed denial-of-service," which involves overwhelming servers with fake traffic to cause service disruptions.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But Florida Governor Ron Desantis' presidential campaign announcement on X in 2023 was also marred by technical difficulties.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Ransomware attacks have been more common than DDOS attacks in recent years because they're usually financially motivated, according to Noonan.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>DDOS, however, is typically used to cause a disruption, which also makes confirming the source of these types of attacks more difficult.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/doctors-declare-pope-francis-no-longer-in-imminent-danger-due-to-pneumonia-but-remains-hospitalized/fbd37df5-4fcc-4e5b-aeb4-f5cd09454ad8" target="_blank"><strong><span>Doctors declare Pope Francis no longer in imminent danger due to pneumonia, but remains hospitalised</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Musk implemented widespread cuts and major changes to X after acquiring the popular social media platform, then called Twitter, in 2022.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He immediately laid off top executives and, within days of acquiring X, cut 3500 people, or around half the platform's workforce.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He laid off 80 per cent of the staff in total and required the remaining employees to return-to-office full time.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The platform has experienced a series of glitches and disruptions since the acquisition.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It's been a tough day for the businesses owned by Musk, who is also the head of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>On Monday, Tesla shares fell 15 per cent, erasing its gains since Trump's November 2024 election.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics 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