As one of the largest communications platforms in the world, Twitter has a user volume that can dwarf most of its competition. However, it would be fair to say that 2022 was a challenging time for the social media platform. Its takeover involving Elon Musk led to more than a little strife for the company, and now a new problem has emerged: a data leak.
Today, people use all manner of different methods to protect their data when in public. From using a privacy phone screen cover to ensuring we protect ourselves using secure connections, the average smartphone user will take many different approaches to stay protected and safe. That being the case, consumers expect companies to take the same kind of care and precautions themselves. That is why news of Twitter’s data leak and its top brass response is so concerning.
The social media giant finally broke its silence on the data breach. The alleged breach is supposed to have provided contact details for ‘millions’ of Twitter’s users. Indeed, recently an individual on a cybercrime forum claimed to have gained access to contact details for as many as four hundred million Twitter users. This was down to a zero-day security flaw within the Twitter systems – the same flaw was used to gain access to around five million user account details.
The company responded with a blog post detailing the information. They say they have conducted an investigation in-house and found no evidence that this data leak has occurred. While some argue this exonerates the company, others have questioned if a lack of evidence stems from not having the tools to be able to catch the data theft in the first place.
Others have argued that the response does not go far enough in detailing what occurred. Questions from involved parties include ensuring that Twitter has the resources to do the investigation previously and ensuring that Twitter is public about who carried out this data privacy audit.
After years of people simply giving away their private data online without much concern, today, we are far more data-conscious. How that data is collected and then used is important to social media users. Therefore, hearing that one of the big social media companies made such a huge mistake could be quite jarring.
The response has, in general, left many commentators perplexed. TechCrunch proclaimed that the official response from Twitter was a lesson in how not to do cybersecurity. Others have been kinder, but the general feeling is that Twitter has not handled the response to this very well at all.
Given the importance of clearing up data leaks, users also want to know if they have any major privacy concerns they need to worry about. This will surely cause plenty of discussion in the weeks and months. With Twitter being among the most under-fire social media platforms, this recent barrage of bad news will do little to keep people onside.
