While most Americans were fast asleep, the social media platform X was fighting for its digital life. Starting at around 2:30 am PT on March 10, 2025, the first wave of a massive cyberattack hit the platform. Users didn’t know it yet, but this was just the beginning.
The assault came in three distinct waves. After the initial pre-dawn strike, attackers launched a second barrage between 6:30-7:30 am PT, followed by a more sustained onslaught from 8:00-11:00 am. Talk about ruining everyone’s Monday morning scroll.
Hackers hit X three times in one morning, turning Monday’s timeline into a digital wasteland.
Over 40,000 frustrated users reported issues at the peak of the outage. No tweets, no likes, no doom-scrolling. The disruption hit both the app (56%) and website (33%), leaving phones and laptops equally useless for X access. Global complaints flooded Downdetector.com, with U.S. coastal areas particularly affected.
Enter the Dark Storm Team. This cybercriminal group, operating since 2023, proudly claimed responsibility via Telegram. “Twitter has been taken offline by Dark Storm Team,” they announced – apparently still using the platform’s old name. Real professionals there.
Elon Musk didn’t mince words. He confirmed the “massive cyberattack” against X, noting that while daily attacks are normal, this one required significant resources. The platform was clearly under major stress as complaints peaked dramatically at both 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. Eastern time. He hinted at the possibility of a large coordinated group or even a country behind it. Serious stuff.
The attack’s nature? Classic Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). Multiple waves of rogue traffic overwhelmed X’s systems, crippling login processes and normal functionality. Not exactly sophisticated, but definitely effective.
X fought back using Cloudflare services, human verification prompts, and additional security measures between attack waves. The verification process required users to fill out forms to prove they weren’t bots before accessing certain parts of the website. The timing raised eyebrows, coinciding with protests against Tesla, Musk’s other company.
The incident highlights how vulnerable even major platforms can be. Security experts recommend that users affected by such attacks should change passwords immediately after service restoration to mitigate potential data exposure. One day you’re scrolling through hot takes, the next you’re staring at an error message. Digital life in 2025, folks. Fragile as ever.
