Hackers have stolen 235 million Twitter accounts, including email addresses, and posted them to an online hacking forum.
Security researcher Alon Gal, the co-founder of Israeli security company Hudson Rock, spotted the posting and warned that the database would be used by hackers, political hacktivists, and governments to further invade users’ privacy. The breach is expected to lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing, and doxxing.
According to The Washington Post, the records were probably compiled in late 2021 using a flaw in Twitter’s system that allowed outsiders with an email address or phone number to find any account that had shared that information with Twitter.
Twitter has not commented on the report or responded to inquiries about the breach since it was first posted on December 24.
In 2020, the Twitter world was set ablaze by a spate of attacks that took over prominent accounts, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett, and Apple. The hacker had access to Twitter’s internal systems and tools to conduct the hack.
