Hackers stole 235 million Twitter accounts, including email addresses and posted them to an online hacking forum.
According to a security researcher, Alon Gal, co-founder of the Israeli security company Hudson Rock, who spotted the posting on a popular underground marketplace, “this database is going to be used by hackers, political hacktivists and of course governments to harm our privacy even further.” He added that the breach would “unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing”.
The Washington Post reports that “the records were probably compiled in late 2021, using a flaw in Twitter’s system that allowed outsiders who already had an email address or phone number to find any account that had shared that information with Twitter.”
Twitter has not commented on the report, which Mr Gal first posted about on social media on December 24, or responded to inquiries about the breach since that date.
This is a real threat as hackers can use the email addresses to attempt to reset passwords and take control of accounts, especially those not protected by two-factor authentication.
In 2020, Twitter world was set ablaze by a spate of attacks that took over prominent Twitter accounts including the likes of Bill Gates , Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, President Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett and Apple. The hacker had access to its internal systems and tools to conduct the hack.
