It has been a bad few months for Twitter with Elon Musk dragging the company through the mud as he tries to get out of the deal he struck to buy the social network and the Twitter bot problem looking increasingly out of control. Not things look to be taking an even worse turn as Twitter’s former head of security has just appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and had some disappointing things to say about how the company the handles its users’ data. Let’s take a deeper look.
Peiter Zatko spoke at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and made it clear to the politician he was talking to that he thought it would be very easy for malicious actors to gain control of their Twitter accounts and even start tweeting from them. This warning echoes a security breach we reported on a couple of months back that saw verified accounts slipping into the hands of scammers.
Another key concern of Zatko’s, who is better known by his whistleblowing handle “Mudge” is just how many Twitter employees have access to user data. This includes being able to easily identify where Twitter users live as well as the location where they are tweeting from at any given moment.
According to the former security chief come whistleblower, the data handling practices at Twitter raise considerable concerns over potential infiltration by foreign powers. This accusation needs to be taken seriously as it was only last month when a former Twitter employee was found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia.
As well as the security risks attached to this loose control over sensitive user data, Zatko also claims to have seen third-party marketplaces offering access to Twitter’s internal systems for a fee.
In Twitter’s defense, the company believes that Zatko is simply a disgruntled ex-employee but the security concerns he raises have an air of credibility around them and he claims that zero action has been taken by the company to shut down. He claims that the vulnerabilities he has described could still be exploited today.
In other recent Twitter news, we are closer than ever to seeing an Edit Tweet button rolling out to all users.
