Security News > 2022 > September > Twitter whistleblower Zatko disses bird site as dysfunctional data dump

Twitter's former head of security Peiter "Mudge" Zatko on Tuesday told the US Senate Judiciary Committee that the social media company's lax data handling and inability to present problems to its board of directors threaten the privacy, security, and democracy for Americans.

"Twitter's security failures threaten national security, compromise the privacy and security of users, and at times threaten the very continued existence of the Company," said Zatko in prepared remarks [PDF].

Zatko worked as Twitter Security Lead - the executive in charge of cybersecurity - from November 2020 until January 2022.

Zatko, hired several months after the 2020 Twitter account takeovers of former President Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and others, said it was not far-fetched to say an employee at the company could take over the Twitter accounts of every senator in the room and said his concern about this state of affairs was what prompted him, at great professional and personal risk, to become a whistleblower.

Asked about what he observed with regard to efforts to access Twitter data by foreign agents, Zatko said one of the consequences of Twitter being a decade behind in security investment is that the company lacks a way to track unauthorized access.

Zatko's revelations about operations at Twitter have been seized upon by billionaire Elon Musk, who made an offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion then had second thoughts after a market correction.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/twitter_mudge_senate/