On Wednesday, a security researcher said that hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum.
Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock, wrote on LinkedIn that the breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing.” He called it “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen.”
So far, the social media company has not commented on the report, which Gal first posted about on social media on December 24, nor replied to inquiries about the breach since that date. It was not clear what action, if any, Twitter has taken to probe in or remediate the matter.
It has not yet been independently verified whether the data on the forum was authentic and came from Twitter. Screenshots of the hacker forum, have circulated online where the data appeared on Wednesday.
Creator of breach-notification site Have I Been Pwned, Troy Hunt viewed the leaked data and said on Twitter that it seemed “pretty much what it’s been described as.”
There were no signs about the identity or location of the hacker or hackers behind the violation. It may have taken place as early as 2021, which was before Elon Musk acquirred the company last year in October in $44 billion deal.
Claims about the size and scope of the breach initially differed with early accounts in December saying 400 million email addresses and phone numbers were stolen.
A major breach at Twitter may interest regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Twitter has its European headquarters, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have been monitoring the Elon Musk-owned company for compliance with European data protection rules and a U.S. consent order respectively.
Soon after acquiring the social media platform Twitter in a $44 billion dollar deal, billionaire and investor CEO Elon Musk has made a series of non anticipated amendments to Twitter, staying true to his style of working. Post the shocking news of firing off Twitter’s top liaison, here comes another breaking update where the new chief has ordered the concerned officials to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings.
In October last year, billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars. Following the takeover, Musk appealed to advertisers to work together. In a message to advertisers, Musk said that he bought Twitter because it was a cornerstone of civilisation and would help humanity.
