What is a DDOS attack and why did it cause technical issues in the Elon Musk - Donald Trump interview?
The conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump scheduled to live stream on X failed to begin on time because of what Musk called a ‘DDOS attack’.
Elon Musk promoted his conversation with presidential candidate Donald Trump that was to be live-streamed on X Spaces on Monday, Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET, but technical issues left users unable to join the event.
Musk posted that the social media platform had been a victim of a “massive DDOS attack.”
Watch: Musk - Trump interview on X live online: News, quotes, updates and reactions on Twitter
There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.
READ ALSO: Republicans court Silicon Valley as November approaches
What is a DDOS attack and why did it cause technical issues in the Elon Musk - Donald Trump interview?
DDOS stands for “distribution denial-of-service”, and according to tech company Cloudflare, a DDOS attack is “a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.”
Such attacks use multiple compromised computer systems that are connected to the internet to fuel attack traffic.
The DDOS attack can be likened to a sudden influx of cars that quickly cause a traffic jam by clogging up a road. This then prevents other vehicles from arriving at their destination.
If this were carried out during the Musk-Trump event, the sudden deluge of internet traffic would have been the reason why those who actually wanted to join were unable to access X Spaces.
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