Africa-Press – Lesotho. Twitter’s former security chief and now whistleblower spokesperson told Congress on Tuesday that the social network has weak cyber defenses that jeopardize the privacy of its users.
Peiter Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, appeared yesterday at the Senate Judiciary Committee to make statements. “I’m here today, because Twitter’s management is deceiving the public, congressmen, regulators and even its own board of directors”, began by saying Zatko, quoted by Lusa.
“They don’t know what data they have, where they live and where they came from, and therefore, unsurprisingly, they cannot protect it. It doesn’t matter who has the keys if there were no locks,” he said.
Zatko said “Twitter’s boss ignored their engineers” in part because “their executive incentives led them to prioritize profit over security. ” The specialist was head of security for that social network until he was fired at the beginning of the current year.
In July, he filed a complaint with the US Congress, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Among the accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement by falsely claiming that it had adopted stronger measures to protect the security and privacy of its users.
Ztako also said that “basic systemic failures” were presented by the company’s engineers that were not addressed. The FTC has been “a little over its head” and far behind its European counterparts in policing the kind of privacy breaches that took place on Twitter, the 51-year-old said.
Zatko’s allegations could also affect Tesla owner Elon Musk’s attempt to back out of his $44 billion bid to buy the social network. Musk claims that Twitter underreports ‘bots’ of spam and cites this as a reason to void the April this year deal.
Many of Zatko’s claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. Twitter called Zatko’s description “a false narrative (…) riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies” and lacking important context. Musk may include new evidence related to Zatko’s allegations in the high-stakes trial, which is due to start on October 17.
For More News And Analysis About Lesotho Follow Africa-Press
