2024-08-14
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The much-anticipated live interview between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X-Platform was hit by technical glitches before it even got started.
After more than 40 minutes of delay, the interview finally began. The reporter learned from Qi'anxin that the XLab laboratory's large-scale threat perception system had captured the attack on the X platform at the first time.
Data from the XLab Malware&Payload platform showed that four botnet masters from the UK, Germany and Canada, as well as a recently very active proxy attack group and a traditional reflection attack group launched at least 34 waves of DDoS attacks, lasting 50 minutes, resulting in a 40-minute interruption of the interview.
From shootings to cyber sniping
According to the original plan, at 8 pm EST on the 12th, Elon Musk was going to conduct a live interview with Donald Trump, the candidate for the 60th US presidential election, and broadcast it live on the X platform through Musk and Trump's personal accounts. However, when the live broadcast time started and users tried to access the live broadcast room of the two, the system prompted "This live broadcast room is not available." It was not until more than 40 minutes later that the live broadcast platform returned to normal.
Musk said at the time: "X appears to have been hit by a large-scale DDoS cyber attack, and we are working to stop it. In the worst case, we will continue the interview with Trump with only a small live audience and publish the conversation later."
In hindsight, the live broadcast delay was not a simple technical failure, but a targeted cyber attack. After the interview, Musk posted on his X platform account that the X platform had suffered a large-scale DDoS attack.
Musk posted on X platform that the platform suffered a large-scale DDoS attack
"I apologize for the delayed launch," Musk said. "Unfortunately, our servers were hit by a massive DDoS attack and all of our data lines were saturated... basically hundreds of gigabytes of data."
X Platform, formerly known as Twitter, was reformed and restructured after being acquired by Musk for $44 billion in October 2022, and Twitter was renamed X Platform. Although the number of users of X Platform has declined after Musk took over, it still has a huge influence in the fields of technology, media and politics in the United States, and is an important online battleground for the US presidential election.
In June 2021, after the riots at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter temporarily banned Trump's personal account. After Musk took over the X platform, Trump's account was restored. The live broadcast between Trump and Musk on the evening of August 12 was also an important campaign event for the Republican Party in this round of the U.S. presidential election.
Some cybersecurity experts believe that Trump was shot during a speech at an election rally before, and this cyber attack on the live broadcast between Trump and Musk was another targeted "terrorist attack", but the battlefield was moved to the Internet.
Disclose details of the attack
Some cybersecurity experts analyzed that social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is also a world-renowned network service provider and should have rich experience and relatively mature technical means to resist DDoS attacks. However, X platform still failed in this attack, which shows that the attacker's attack strategy is very targeted and well-prepared. It is not an exaggeration to call it a "cyber sniper war."
DDoS attack, full name Distributed Denial of Service Attack, is a very traditional but very effective brute force attack method. Its principle can be simply understood as follows: the attacker controls a large number of network devices (including servers, computers, mobile phones, IoT devices, etc.) and initiates a large number of false access requests to the target server, causing system congestion and paralysis, and normal users cannot access it.
The large-scale threat perception system of Qi'anxin XLab captured the attack on the X platform at the first time.
Gong Yiming, the head of the laboratory, said that four Mirai botnet masters were observed to have participated in the attack. Other attack groups also participated in the attack using reflection attacks, HTTP proxy attacks, and other methods. Monitoring showed that the four botnet masters launched at least 34 waves of DDoS attacks. The four control servers were mainly concentrated in the UK (2), Germany (1), and Canada (1). The attack lasted from 8:37 to 9:28 Beijing time, with a duration of 50 minutes, which basically coincided with the delay time of the interview.
The attack lasted a long time, which was a notable feature of this attack. Statistics show that most DDoS attacks last for less than a few minutes, and some even last for a few seconds, which can cause huge damage to the target system. However, this attack lasted for nearly an hour. Such a long attack time shows that the attacker was clearly well prepared and highly targeted.
Some network security experts believe that in the face of "cyber sniper warfare", even if the attack method is simple, crude, and primitive DDoS, it can also paralyze the system of large network service providers. The experience and lessons learned are also worth learning from in various security work in China, and the potential major security risks are worth being vigilant about.
Editor: Peng Bo
Proofreading: Wang Wei
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