A much-anticipated chat between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Republican US Presidential candidate Donald Trump on X (previously Twitter) was disrupted by a cyberattack. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack disrupted the interview.

Musk acknowledged the incident in a post on X, writing, "There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X." We're working on taking it down. Worst case scenario, we'll start with a lesser number of live listeners and upload the chat afterward."

"We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today," Musk said in another post, promising to present the live interview with a limited audience. "We will proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 ET and then post the unedited audio immediately thereafter," he told reporters. The interview was slated for 8 p.m. ET.

What is a DDoS attack

A DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, interrupts network services by attacking websites and servers in an attempt to drain an application's resources. The attackers overwhelm the targeted site with erroneous traffic, causing poor website operation or taking it offline entirely.

A DDoS assault might last several hours or even days. These cyberattacks can potentially create several outages within a single strike.

According to a Microsoft website, a DDoS attack occurs when numerous computers attack one computer, forcing off genuine users. As a result, services may be delayed or affected for an extended period of time.

"Hackers may penetrate your database during an attack and get access to important information. "DDoS attacks can exploit security vulnerabilities and target any endpoint that is publicly accessible via the internet," it stated.