X owner and tech billionaire Elon Musk said a massive DDoS attack struck his livestreaming interview with former US President Donald Trump on Monday, forcing Musk to scale down the live viewers. The interview was delayed as the glitch kept the users out of the live stream on the microblogging platform.
Trump hosts a space over the phone with Elon Musk in Palm Springs at his home, Mar-A-Lago, with Space X security engineer Christopher Stanley on the scene as millions of people listen in.
"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," Musk wrote on X.
What Is DDoS Attack?
DDOS, also known as a "Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack," is a cyber attack that disrupts a server or network's normal traffic by flooding the target or its surrounding infrastructure with internet traffic. Cybersecurity firm Fortinet has termed it a cybercrime.
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"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.
Microsoft support page explained the DDoS attacks the ‘target websites and servers by disrupting network services in an attempt to exhaust an application’s resources’. It is although DDoS attacks are wide-reaching and target all sorts of industries, some industries, like gaming, e-commerce and telecommunication, are targeted more than others.