Special government employee and tech mogul Elon Musk claimed a “massive cyberattack” that took down X on Monday originated in the “Ukraine area.”
“We’re not sure exactly what happened,” Musk told Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow about the attack on his social media platform. “But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”
Experts question whether that was truly the case.
Cybercriminals have been known to create false IP addresses to impersonate computer systems from different parts of the world, a practice known as “spoofing.”
Experts told The Post it was highly improbably that Ukrainian government actors were the perpetrator of such an audacious and far-reaching attack one day before diplomats from Washington and Kyiv meet in Saudi Arabia.
“It makes absolutely no sense for Ukrainian hackers to attack Elon Musk the day before a meeting between the United States and Ukraine in which they are attempting to get the United States to start sharing intelligence again, and provide aid and assistance, working towards a peace agreement that has been in question since the Oval Office visit,” the Atlantic Council’s Alex Plitsas told The Post on Monday.
“The question everyone looking at this needs to ask themselves is, ‘who benefits from this?’ And it’s not Ukraine.”
While other actors — such as the cyber-hacking group Anonymous, which has been vocal about their opposition to Musk — may have some impetus to attack X, only Russia would have the motive to link or frame Ukraine to the hack.
“Anonymous is another likely possibility based on the statements they put out publicly and the capability and desire to hit (Musk), but in terms of who stands to benefit based on the timing — the only one is really the Russians, because doing it today would disrupt the talks that are scheduled for tomorrow,” Plitsas said. “The only people that would stand to benefit from that would be the Russians in the sense that they’re blaming the Ukrainians, so they would want the Ukrainians to look bad and disrupt the talks.” (New York Post)
On Monday, Musk said the site gets attacked every day “but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing…”
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