Expert: Amateur hacker behind prolonged DDoS attack against X

U.S. social media firm X's hours-long service disruption on Monday was alleged by Predicta Labs CEO Baptiste Robert to have been due to a distributed denial-of-service attack conducted by an Egyptian college student and not the pro-Palestinian hacktivist operation Dark Storm as initially claimed, according to Cybernews.

Open Source Intelligence investigation conducted by Robert that commenced with the assessment of the purported Dark Storm leader's handles on Telegram, including "MRHELL112," "Darkccrr," "GLITCHcracker," and "GLITCHAT1," which were later associated with a DDoS Attack Services-related Telegram channel.

Robert tracked the "DrSinaway" user usually cited alongside Darkcrr led to the discovery of the Cyber Sorcerers hacking group, which has a similar logo as Dark Storm, as well as social media accounts belonging to Egyptian student and software engineer Mohamed Hany.

"Under an old username, Mohamed was searching for a team around August-September 2023. He chose to join a DDoS-related Telegram channel to align with a Russian group, claiming it was "for the benefit of Russia and the Arab world," said Robert, who noted Hany to have one or more accomplices in the attack.