Former head of security at Twitter, Peter Zatko, also known as a hacker under the nickname Mudge, criticized the company. He highlighted Twitter as a chaotic and unruly company, riddled with strife, failing to adequately protect its users, including government agencies, heads of state and other public figures.
Pater Zatko also alleges that Twitter violated an 11-year-old agreement with the FTC by falsely claiming it had a solid security plan in place. It is noted that Zatko warned colleagues that half of the company’s servers have outdated and vulnerable software. In addition, the company’s management allegedly withheld the facts about the number of hacks and the lack of protection of user data, instead presenting optimistic reports to the directors. All of these allegations are contained in a whistleblower complaint filed last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission.
The complaint also alleges that thousands of Twitter employees had extensive and poorly monitored internal access to the company’s core software. For years, this has led to hacks, including the hijacking of accounts belonging to high-profile users such as Elon Musk and former US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
It also claims that the company prioritized user growth over spam reduction, even though inappropriate content worsened the user experience. This is because executives were rewarded with individual bonuses of up to $10 million, which depended on increasing the number of daily users, rather than combating spam. The complaint alleges that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal “lied” when he wrote in May that the company was “strongly committed to detecting and removing as much spam as possible.”
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Zatko said in an interview that the decision to go public with this information is a continuation of his previous work in identifying problems in software and broader systems companies. He was hired at Twitter by former CEO Jack Dorsey in late 2020 after a major hack into Twitter’s systems. In January of this year, Parag Agrawal fired Zatko. He refused to discuss anything of what happened on Twitter, except for an official complaint.
“I felt ethically bound. This is not an easy step,” Peter Zatko said in an interview.
An edited version of the 84-page document was sent to congressional committees.
Most likely, this information will have a direct impact on the legal proceedings between Twitter and Elon Musk .
Elon Musk summons Twitter CEO to ‘public debate’ over platform bots
Source: washingtonpost
