New York, Aug 23 – Twitter has serious cybersecurity problems, has lied to the authorities about them and has neither the capacity nor the interest to determine the number of false accounts on the social network, according to a former Twitter executive. the company.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former Twitter security chief, mentioned all this in a report sent last month to the US Congress and several federal agencies, the content of which was released on Tuesday by The Washington Post and CNN.
According to these media, the internal information shared by Zatko describes a company with significant management problems, which among other things allows too many employees to access its central controls and sensitive information without adequate supervision.
In addition, he assures that one or more employees may be working for foreign intelligence services and denounces that company executives have lied to shareholders and regulators about the important security deficiencies of the social network.
The complaint says that “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance and threats to national security and democracy” have been detected in the company.
Zatko also points out that Twitter does not properly delete the data of users who cancel their accounts, in some cases because it has lost the information, and that he has misled regulators on the matter.
His report also refers to the issue of the “bots” that populate the social network and that are at the center of the trial that will face Twitter and the billionaire Elon Musk, after he decided to cancel the purchase of the company, in part because he believes that he has not told the truth about the number of false accounts.
According to the former executive, Twitter does not have the necessary resources to really know the number of “bots” and its main managers are not interested in achieving them either.
Zatko worked at the company between November 2020 and January of this year, when he was laid off.
In response to questions from CNN about the complaints filed, a Twitter spokesperson said Zatko lost his job due to “ineffective leadership and poor performance” on his assignments.
“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” the company said.
“Mr Zatko’s accusations and opportunistic timing appear to be designed to capture attention and harm Twitter, its customers and its shareholders,” the spokesperson insisted.
The complaints come at a very delicate moment for the technology company, which this year accepted Musk’s offer to take over its business for 44,000 million dollars and is now fighting for the operation to close according to the agreed terms.
Twitter sued the businessman after he announced in July his intention to cancel the purchase and the case is scheduled to go to trial in October.
According to Whistleblower Aid, an organization that helps those who process internal complaints and is supporting Zatko, the former Twitter security chief has not been in contact with Musk and began this process before it became known that the billionaire planned to take over the company. .
However, according to CNN, Musk’s lawyers have already requested information from Zatko in order to use it in the trial.