Over 200 million Twitter users’ names, e-mail addresses, screen names, number of followers and phone numbers have reportedly been stolen in a massive hack attack, with the data dump now posted on the dark web.
The data breach, which took place as early as 2021, “will lead to more hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing,” according to Israel-based Hudson Rock cybersecurity-monitoring firm.
It added this could turn out as ”one of the most significant” data leaks yet recorded by the firm.
Overall, the size of the database stolen was purportedly about 63GB.
Previous reports of the alleged breach, featured in U.S. media in December.
The reports claim 400 million email addresses and phone numbers found their way into the hackers’ hands.
At the end of 2022, Alon Gal, co-founder of Hudson Rock, warned on social media about the breach.
Threat actors and data breach collectors had been harvesting scraped Twitter user profiles by exploiting the microblogging site’s API vulnerability, according to Gal.
Twitter’s bug discovered the bounty programme in January 2022, in a blog post in August.
It stated that the developments had followed an update to its code in June 2021.
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This, accordingly, resulted in cybercriminals taking advantage of the ensuing flaw.
The hack “allowed someone to enter a phone number or e-mail address into the log-in flow in the attempt to learn if that information was tied to an existing Twitter account.
“And if so, which specific account”, the company said at the time.
Twitter claimed at the time that it had no evidence to suggest someone had taken advantage of the vulnerability.
However, a threat actor has reportedly released data consisting of 200 million Twitter profiles on the Breached hacking forum.
The reported data breach occurred before Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, purchased the social network site on Oct. 2, 2022, for $44 billion.
Twitter has not offered any official comment on recent listing of user data ostensibly for sale on the dark web.
Meanwhile, Musk launched his tenure as Twitter CEO by firing top executives and almost half of its workforce.
Musk has also introduced new hiring rules and a slew of other controversial changes.
Reports of data-breach are yet another headache facing Twitter. (Sputnik)
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