Whistleblower

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s lack of internal security controls was such that the company was simply unable to detect agents of foreign intelligence services who had infiltrated the company, former security chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko says. Zatko made the claims in testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, in a hearing on Twitter’s data security practices. Opening questions from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) quickly homed in on claims…

During a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Twitter’s former security chief turned whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, shed new light on his claims that the company’s lax security practices harmed U.S. . Among the new allegations was that the company had a Chinese agent working for the country's Ministry of State Security (MSS) on its payroll. During his opening statement, Sen. Chuck Grassley stated that “the FBI notified Twitter of at least one Chinese agent in the company." In the public version of his whistleblower…

Former Twitter security executive Peiter Zatko, who was fired by the company in January, told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that Twitter executives’ “incentives led them to prioritize profits over security,” echoing his whistleblower complaint. Twitter has pushed back against his charges, and said he was making misleading statements. He has been called before the committee to provide more information on his assertions. Democrats and Republicans have raised…

Twitter's former security chief and popular hacker Peiter Zatko will testifty before a US Senate Committee on Tuesday, according to a report. Zatko is expected to be grilled by the committee over his claims of security lapses on the part of the popular microblogging service in a whistleblower complaint to multiple US agencies. The former Twitter executive's allegations that Twittter misled regulators about its compliance with a 2011 US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement will also reportedly be examined later today.…

As the maxim goes: If at first you don’t succeed, try again. And again. Elon Musk made a third attempt to back out of his messy, ongoing $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on Friday. The company turned around and denied the claim on Monday.The richest man on Earth alleged that Twitter’s $7 million payout to ex-executive (and to-be whistleblower), Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, following the security head’s departure from the company, was a violation of their Merger Agreement. In a letter to Twitter filed with the Securities and…

Whistleblower Zatko has claimed Twitter had misled regulators about its compliance with a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over improper handling of user data. The US senators said they had invited Agrawal to testify on Tuesday, but he had declined.…

The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are pushing Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal to address allegations made by the company’s former head of security in a lengthy whistleblower complaint. In a new letter to Agrawal reported , the leaders of the committee pressed the CEO to address claims that Twitter’s security practices could harm national security, as well as other issues raised in Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s complaint. Up to now, Twitter has to address the majority of Zatko’s claims in any kind of detail, though the…

Twitter reportedly stated that it did not breach any of the terms of its $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,49,900 crore) takeover deal with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday. The microblogging service was accused by Musk of violating the conditions of the deal as he made another attempt to exit the deal. While he has previously claimed that he was misled regarding the number of fake or spam users on Twitter, Musk on Friday cited Twitter's payment of $7.75 million (roughly Rs. 60 crore) to Peiter Zatko as a reason to walk away from…

This illustration photo taken on August 5, 2022 shows a cellphone displaying a photo of Elon Musk placed on a computer monitor filled with Twitter logos in Washington, DC.Samuel Corum | AFP | Getty ImagesA Delaware court denied Elon Musk's request to delay the trial over his attempt to abandon a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, according to a new filing released Wednesday.But the billionaire Tesla CEO will be allowed to add claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his countersuit, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled.The…

A judge recently ruled that Elon Musk can use the allegations made by Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko as part of the arguments in his countersuit against the company. As it turns out, Musk intends to use not just Zatko's claims to win his case, but also the fact that the former Twitter executive received a settlement to get out of the $44 billion acquisition deal he made with the social network. As The Washington Post reports, Musk's lawyers sent a letter to Twitter, telling the company that the severance payment worth…