Tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on Monday, 12 August, claimed on a social media platform that his interview with former President Donald Trump had been halted because of a ‘massive DDoS attack’. In his post, he wrote, ‘There appears to be a massive DDoS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.’
There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down.
Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Musk also admitted that they had tested the system earlier to avoid any glitches. In his post, he wrote, ‘We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today.’
We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today https://t.co/ymqGBFEJX0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
What Is a DDoS Attack?
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are malicious attempts to make an online service unavailable by disrupting and flooding the particular target with internet traffic from multiple sources.
Cybersecurity firm Fortinet has termed it a cybercrime. “DDoS Attack means ‘Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDOS) Attack,’ and it is a cybercrime in which the attacker floods a server with internet traffic to prevent users from accessing connected online services and sites,” according to the firm, as reported by the media.
Another report published mentions that DDoS attacks use multiple compromised computer systems as sources of attack traffic and the exploited machines could include computers and other networked resources, reads an explainer by IT service management firm Cloudfare.
