Overview

March 2025 Dark Storm Twitter / X DDoS Attack, also known as March 2025 Rumble DDoS Attack, refers to multiple Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on the social media platform Twitter / X and the video-hosting and streaming platform Rumble perpetrated by the pro-Palestinian hacking group known as the Dark Storm Team in mid-March 2025. The cyber attacks caused mass outages in various countries and X owner Elon Musk claimed the hacking was "done with a lot of resources" and that a "coordinated group and/or a country" might be involved, stating the hack allegedly originated from Ukraine.

Background

In the early morning of March 10th, 2025, X / Twitter users started to experience issues logging onto the platform and began posting about it elsewhere online. The service outage tracker site Downdetector^[1] showed an influx of reports at 6 a.m., 10 a.m. and noon (seen below).

Later that day, the hacker group Dark Storm Team announced via a Telegram channel that they were behind taking down X multiple times on March 10th. X^[2] user @Breaking911 shared a screenshot of the message that same day(seen below), which amassed more than 523,000 views and 4,900 likes in a few hours.

According to Newsweek,^[6] the group's cyberattacks primarily target "Western entities, including those in the United States, Ukraine, the UAE and Israel." The article also stated that Dark Storm is known mainly for targeting countries and entities that support Israel and that it's "Pro-Palestinian."

Developments

Elon Musk's Response

On March 10th, 2025, Elon Musk^[3] tweeted about the cyberattack against X, writing that "this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved." The post amassed more than 24 million views and 169,000 likes in a few hours.

Musk also commented on the cyber attack during a Fox News interview on the same day, claiming the IP addresses of the hackers originated in the Ukraine area. A clip of the interview was posted to YouTube^[4] that day, which garnered roughly 3,800 views and 235 likes in a few hours.

Rumble Attack

The video hosting and streaming platform Rumble was also one of the companies affected by Dark Storm's DDoS attack. The X^[5] page @TheInsiderPaper shared the information (seen below) about the video hosting platform attack, which received more than 16,000 views and 328 likes in a few hours.

Online Reactions

The Dark Storm Team's cyber attack and resulting Twitter / X outage sparked a debate about the risks online platforms and critical infrastructures could face, as well as memes about X users trying to use the platform.

For example, on March 10th, 2025, the X^[7] account associated with the hacking collective Anonymous posted an illustration of a dead blue bird, Twitter's previous logo before the rebrand, which amassed 638,000 views and 31,000 likes in a few hours.

Musk's claims that the IP addresses of the hackers were from Ukraine also sparked outrage and debate on social media. For instance, on March 10th, 2025, TikTok^[8] user @joeycontino2 reacted to the Musk Fox News interview (seen below) and later voiced his opinion about the claim, amassing over 73,000 plays and 4,400 likes in a few hours.

Search Interest

External References