Twitter Inc.’s security lapses were so grave that they threatened national security, the company’s former head of security-turned-whistle-blower told senators on Tuesday.
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Peiter Zatko, also known by his hacker name “Mudge,” said Twitter was a decade behind necessary security upgrades, which he described as a “ticking bomb of security vulnerabilities.”
“Twitter’s unsafe handling of the data of its users and its inability or unwillingness to truthfully represent issues to its board of directors and regulators have created real risk to tens of millions of Americans, the American democratic process, and America’s national security,” Zatko said in the hearing.
He also said the company’s leadership “repeatedly covered up its security failures by duping regulators and lying to users and investors.”
Zatko, 51, first testified before Congress in 1998, warning a Senate committee about fundamental weaknesses in the internet’s infrastructure. He then went on to work at US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and the payment service Stripe Inc. before being hired by Twitter founder and former Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey in 2020 to help address security concerns.
He was fired in January 2022 over what the company said were performance shortcomings.
His claims come as Twitter prepares to go to court to force Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk to complete a $44 billion deal to buy the company. Zatko’s allegations,...
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