- Kyle Chua
Millions of Twitter Users’ Data Leak Online Even As Musk Claims Signups Reach All-Time High
Elon Musk should probably avoid boasting about Twitter's new signups if his new company cannot keep users' private data secure.
According to Bleeping Computer, the microblogging site suffered from multiple breaches over the last few months, resulting in potentially tens of millions of user data being compromised. At least 5.4 million user records containing non-public information were recently made available for free on a hacking site after first being circulated in August. Security researchers found that there was a similar data dump for over 1.7 million Twitter profiles of suspended users.
The vulnerability in question involved the use of a Twitter API that allowed users to submit phone numbers and email addresses to retrieve the associated Twitter ID. The ID could then be used to scrape other information tied to the profile. It has since been resolved, but the damage appears to have already been done.
The number of users affected by the multiple data dumps totals almost seven million. While most of the data consisted of public information like Twitter handles, names, locations and verified status, it also included private information, such as phone numbers and email addresses – sensitive information that can be used for phishing scams and other malicious activities.
Security researchers also think there had been a significant breach exploiting the same vulnerability that may have compromised tens of millions of users, though the exact number couldn't be confirmed. Bleeping Computer did manage to verify that the phone numbers from the dump were legitimate. The tech news site adds that none of the phone numbers from the previous data dumps are present in the new one, illustrating the scale of Twitter's data breaches.
The report comes as Elon Musk announced that signups for Twitter reached an all-time high one month after completing his takeover. The billionaire shared a slide deck showing the current state of the social media giant.
One slide shows a graph that, as of 16 November, new user signups were averaging more than two million per day. Another, meanwhile, shows that user active minutes also reached an all-time high, with users spending eight billion active minutes per day over the last seven days as of 15 November.
Musk, however, did not share anything about Twitter’s financials after he previously told staff that bankruptcy was "not out of the question” for the company.
Twitter suffered from multiple breaches over the last few months, resulting in potentially tens of millions of user data being compromised.
At least 5.4 million user records containing non-public information were recently made available for free on a hacking site after first being circulated in August.
The report comes as Elon Musk announced that signups for Twitter reached an all-time high one month after completing his takeover.