‘It’s a threat to national security’: Former Twitter head of security denounces negligence

Twitter is having a very turbulent year on a business level. In addition to the constant pressure from Elon Musk to cancel the takeover deal and the inability to generate a steady income, the social network must now respond to the explosive statement of its former head of security. Cause? A series of violations that endangered “national security”.

The Washington Post report details the revelations Petr Zatkowho reported directly to the CEO Twitter from the company’s security headquarters, and that he had already forwarded these complaints to the United States Congress for consideration.

In the accusations, Zatko shares the image of a poorly run company in which too many people have access to central management and private information without any restrictions or oversight. In addition, it emphasizes that one or more employees will work for foreign intelligence services.

Serious security issues on Twitter

Peter Zatko was hired Jack Dorseythe founder and former CEO of Twitter, after a massive hack in 2020, affected verified accounts of individuals and companies to promote cryptocurrency scams.

} Assuming this role, Zatko discovers serious flaws in Twitter’s security system. The report mentions that nearly half of the social network’s employees can access critical platform controls. The expert describes how “terrifying shortcomings, negligence, willful ignorance and threats to national security and democracy” these conclusions.

Part of that negligence, according to the complaint, includes zero effort to manage devices. Zatko denounces this “It was impossible to protect the production environment. All engineers had access. There was no record of who entered the environment or what they did… No one knew where the data was or if it was critical, and all the engineers had some kind of critical access to the production environment.

A report submitted to Congress indicates that at least 4 out of 10 devices used by Twitter employees do not meet basic security standards. In addition, a quarter of a million servers used by Twitter to support the social network run on outdated software that does not support data encryption or regular updates.

Why did Parag Agrawal fire Zatko? twitter replies

After the 2020 hack, Zatko took on the task of beefing up Twitter’s digital security at the request of Dorsey, who is leaving the company in 2021. In January 2022, Zatko prepared an internal report to inform the board of directors about issues with users’ personal data. After this report, CEO Parag Agrawal fired him.

The security specialist points out that before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Agrawal suggested that he accept the conditions of the Putin government on the platform in order to avoid mass censorship of the service. Although the proposal was rejected, Zatko notes that it shows how far Twitter can go to continue to grow.

“The fact that the current CEO of Twitter even suggested that Twitter has become an accomplice of the Putin regime raises concerns about Twitter’s impact on US national security.” Zatko said in a statement.

Twitter called Zatko’s claims false, exaggerated and outdated. Rebecca Khan, global vice president of communications for the social network, told TWP that “Zatko was fired from Twitter over six months ago for poor performance and leadership, and now it appears he is deliberately trying to harm Twitter, its customers and shareholders.”

Twitter, Zatko, Musk and bot accounts

The accusation comes at a critical time for Twitter, which is seeking to defend itself in a lawsuit against Elon Musk, a businessman who is seeking to void the company’s acquisition process over inaccuracies in the number of fake accounts on the social network.

On this occasion, Zatko points out that Twitter “I didn’t want to properly measure the prevalence of bots.” Currently, Twitter claims that less than 5% of registered accounts are automated, and Musk criticizes this figure for claiming that the number is at least 20% within the platform.

For a specialist, a valuable parameter will be data on the number of automated accounts: “The executive team, board of directors, shareholders and users deserve an honest answer about what they consume in terms of data, information and content on the platform… At least from my point of view, I want to invest in a company where I know that actually happens because I want to invest strategically in the organization’s long-term value.”