Staff Reports
Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Twitter's former security chief, claims in a TIME magazine investigation that executives risked national security through "egregious flaws" in privacy and security.
Zatko, a former hacker, believes the company misled users, investors, and board members.
Zatko claims he was sacked after exposing multiple security infractions.
Twitter’s former top security official has alleged that company executives endangered national security.
He also accuses Twitter executives of “lying about bots” https://t.co/WeFWTpmQV1
— TIME (@TIME) August 23, 2022
Peiter Zatko allegedly supplied documents to TIME Magazine.
Twitter hired the hacker in 2020 to handle security.
The corporation received bad news. Elon Musk claims in his lawsuit against Twitter that the business hid the percentage of spam bots and phony accounts in its user base.
Musk was right.
TIME said:
Peiter "Mudge" Zatko is a hacker and cybersecurity expert. He was Twitter's security lead from Nov. 2020 until Jan. 2022, when he was sacked by CEO Parag Agrawal after documenting multiple security violations and working with the company's compliance officer on an investigation. Zatko's disclosures were shared with Congress in July after he invoked federal whistleblower protections.
In 84 pages of disclosures and accompanying documentation, Zatko accuses top executives of misleading consumers, investors, and board members regarding data security and privacy. Zatko claims these weaknesses lead to frequent security breaches, bad actor exploitation, and foreign government penetration.
The records reveal what Zatko claims are years of basic security shortcomings at Twitter, making the platform vulnerable to misuse and potentially collapse. Disclosures imply that Agrawal, the most senior security official preceding Zatko, allowed problems to fester. “If these vulnerabilities are not solved, regulators, media, and users of the platform will be shocked,” Zatko said in a 2022 paper mentioned in the revelation.
The discoveries come weeks before the first court case in a legal fight over the sale of the company to billionaire Elon Musk, who wants out of the deal. Musk believes Twitter deceived him and investors about spam bots and false accounts. Zatko began documenting Twitter's alleged wrongdoings months before Musk revealed his desire to buy the firm, according to internal company communications. The Oct. trial will determine whether Musk must buy Twitter.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Gateway Pundit.
