Twitter Ex-security Chief Turns Whistle Blower; Raises Concerns On Security

A former Twitter security head turned whistleblower and testified that the firm deceived users and US authorities about security flaws. Peiter Zatko also claimed that Twitter undervalued the number of fake and spam accounts on its platform.

The allegations might have an impact on Twitter's legal struggle with billionaire Elon Musk, who is attempting to rescind his $44 billion (£37 billion) purchase of the firm. Mr Zatko's charges, according to Twitter, are false and contradictory.

According to the report, he was fired in January for insufficient leadership and poor performance. Mr Zatko accused Twitter of failing to maintain strong security standards and "lying about bots to Elon Musk" in his damaging allegations, which were originally reported by mediapersons.

In July, he filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A redacted copy of the lawsuit was provided to mediamen. Mr Zatko also criticised Twitter's handling of sensitive information and said that it failed to appropriately report some of these concerns to US regulators.Twitter has been hacked several times, including by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kanye West.

Mr Zatko claims that Twitter experienced an unusually high number of security problems - "roughly one security event per week significant enough that Twitter was obligated to report it to regulators." The former security head expressed alarm about Twitter's data handling practises, stating that too many workers had access to key networks and user data. He was concerned that the firm had a viable disaster recovery plan and said that Twitter had previously failed to properly destroy the data of those who deleted their accounts.