The Washington Post and CNN reported that an explosive whistleblower disclosed that Twitter has critical security issues posing threats. It threatens the personal information of Twitter users, company shareholders, national security, and democracy. The discovery, forwarded to Congress and federal agencies last month, showed a confused and careless environment at a mishandled company.
This flaw allowed most of its employees to access central controls and sensitive information of the platform without satisfactory overlook. However, some senior-most executives of the company are trying to tackle Twitter’s critical susceptibilities. A number of current employees of the company are allegedly working for a foreign intelligence service.
Moreover, the whistleblower was publicly recognized at Peiter Zatko (Mudge). He was formerly working as the company’s head of security and was responsible for directly reporting to the CEO. Zatko also alleged that the leadership of Twitter misguided its own board and government officials regarding its security flaws. The vulnerabilities include opening doors to foreign spying, hacking, manipulation, and misinformation campaigns.
Zatko Alleged Twitter For Not Deleting Alleged Accounts
The whistleblower also alleged Twitter for not officially deleting users’ data after canceling their accounts. The company supposedly lost track of the information and misguided regulators about essentially deleting data and accounts. The whistleblower added that Twitter executives don’t understand the motivated resources of an entirely true number of bots on the social platform.
Meanwhile, bots have become a center point of the attempts of Elon Musk to pull back a $44 billion deal. Keep in mind that Musk earlier needed to buy the company, while Twitter rejected Musk’s claims. Twitter terminated Zatko in January after the company claimed his poor performance. The allegation of Zatko came after his attempt to flag the security lapses to Twitter’s board.
The Whistleblower Aid Represented Peiter Zatko
Zatko needed to help Twitter resolve years of technical weaknesses and non-compliance with a former privacy agreement with the FTC. Moreover, the Whistleblower Aid represented Zatko. It is the same group that represented Frances Haugen (Facebook whistleblower). The founder of Whistleblower Aid and the lawyer of Zatko, John Tye also shared information with CNN.
John Tye said Zatko didn’t make any contact with Musk. He said Zatko started the whistleblower process before any signs of the involvement of Elon Musk with Twitter. An attorney for Musk, Alex Spiro also shared information after the story was initially published. He said that he already issued an instruction for Zatko. Spiro discovered that his termination and scrutinizing of other key employees were explosive.
Twitter Says Data Privacy & Security are Key Priorities
Meanwhile, CNN also collected comments from Twitter on at least 50 dedicated questions related to the discovery. A Twitter spokesperson informed CNN in a statement that privacy and security are key priorities for the company. He said the company offers clear tools for its users to manage privacy, data sharing, and ad targeting. Twitter has developed internal workflows to confirm the deletion of alleged accounts.
Moreover, Twitter will also start deletion and deactivating the alleged accounts. The spokesperson didn’t mention the total completion of the process. It is important that Zatko was terminated from his senior executive post at the company in January 2022. Twitter’s representative said the company has experienced a false narrative related to its data security and privacy.
