Whistleblower Says Twitter Has ‘Egregious’ Cybersecurity Deficiencies

Former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko accused the social media company of “egregious” cybersecurity failures in a whistleblower complaint dated July 6.

Zatko alleged he had seen “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy” while at Twitter. He said thousands of employee laptops contained copies of the platform’s source code. Furthermore, he said, many employees had repeatedly and intentionally downloaded spyware on their work computers “at the request of external organizations.” Zatko also said he warned colleagues that about half of the company’s 500,000 servers used outdated and vulnerable software — but executives withheld that information from company directors.

Zatko, a well-known hacker known as “Mudge,” joined Twitter in late 2020 after a high-profile hacking incident and left in January 2022. The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) and CNN (Left bias) first reviewed Zatko’s whistleblower complaint, which was filed with the SEC, the FTC and the Justice Department. 

Coverage was widespread and initially balanced across the spectrum. While some outlets prominently featured their coverage, others like Fox News (Right bias) initially appeared not to cover the story at all. Some coverage across the spectrum speculated that Zatko’s complaint could help billionaire Elon Musk’s effort to prove Twitter misrepresented how many spam bots were on its site.