Twitter Inc. was “10 years behind” industry security standards and had little grasp of the vast troves of data it collected, whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko claimed in devastating testimony before the Senate on Tuesday.
Chief among his concerns: The company’s unwillingness to remove a foreign agent on Twitter’s payroll in a foreign office. “There were thousands of failed attempts to access internal systems that were happening per week and nobody was noticing,” he said, because of the lack of logging of how its internal systems were being used.
In November 2020, Twitter TWTR, +0.81% hired Zatko — who previously worked at the Pentagon, a Google GOOGL, -4.69% GOOG, -4.67% division, and fintech firm Stripe — to fortify cybersecurity and privacy at the company following a high-profile hack allegedly spearheaded by a Florida teenager in July 2020 that compromised the Twitter accounts of some of the most famous people on the planet, including then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“I don’t see how [Twitter Chief Executive Parag] Agrawal can maintain his position at Twitter” if Zatko’s claims are accurate, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said. Agrawal did not accept an invitation to testify, Grassley added, because Twitter was concerned his testimony could jeopardize the company’s ongoing litigation with billionaire Elon Musk to acquire the company. Musk is attempting to back out of the $44 billion deal, which goes to Delaware Court of Chancery in October.
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