New Delhi: Reportedly, 200 million e-mail addresses of Twitter users have been hacked. The email Ids are said to be shared or posted on an online hacking forum by the hackers, according to a security researcher.
Co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock, Alon Gal takes it to LinkedIn and calls it, “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen.” “Will, unfortunately, lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxing,” one of his posts read.
The micro-blogging site has not made any comment on the report, which Gal first shared on social media on December 24, nor has it replied to queries about the violation since that time. It was unclear what steps Twitter had taken, if any, to investigate or correct the problem.
Moreover, the creator of the breach- notification site named – Have I Been Pwned, Troy Hunt took to Twitter and said, “pretty much what it’s been described as” after viewing the leaked data on the site.
There were no hints about the identity or location of the hackers responsible for the cause. It could have happened as early as 2021 before Elon Musk took over the company’s control last year.
The size and scope of the breach were initially disputed, with early reports in December claiming that 400 million email addresses and phone numbers were nicked.
A significant breach at Twitter may pique the interest of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. Twitter’s European headquarters, The Data Protection Commission in Ireland and the United States Federal Trade Commission have both been tracking the Elon Musk-owned company for adherence with European data protection rules and a U.S. consent order.