Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Twitter's former head of security, has said the company deceived federal regulators and its board of directors about "extreme, egregious deficiencies" in its defenses against hackers.
A joint report from CNN and The Washington Post said on Tuesday that Zatko's complaint came from a senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill and contains allegations that the Indian government forced Twitter to put one of its agents on the company payroll.
Zatko, 51, paints Twitter as a chaotic and rudderless company beset by infighting and unable to protect its 238 million daily users, including public figures and governments.
He filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, accusing Twitter of violating its agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to maintain sound security practices. This could allegedly put Twitter at the mercy of foreign spies and hackers.
Zatko says he tried to highlight the security lapses to Twitter's board and the alleged violation of the FTC agreement.
John Tye, Zatko's attorney, told CNN that his client had not been in contact with billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who is trying to pull out of a deal to take over Twitter. Tye said that Zatko began the whistleblowing process before there was any indication of Musk's involvement in buying the social media platform.
Zatko joined Twitter in 2020 after a teenage hacker broke into the verified accounts of political leaders, but he was fired by the company in January.
In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, Twitter's global vice president of communications, Rebecca Hahn, said: "Mr. Zatko was fired from Twitter more than six months ago for poor performance and leadership, and he now appears to be opportunistically seeking to inflict harm on Twitter, its customers, and its shareholders."
Zatko says he was dismissed by Twitter's CEO, Parag Agrawal, after he told members of the board that protective measures for sensitive user data were weaker than they were told.
Zatko grew up as a son of a chemistry professor and a mining scientist in Alabama and Pennsylvania. By the time he turned 30, he had produced one of the most powerful tools for finding out passwords. Zatko, using a pseudonym, testified to Congress about the susceptibility of the internet to hackers.
Zatko has an extensive career in cybersecurity that spans three decades and has exposed the risks facing technology users as a hacker.
In 1996, he joined L0pht, a Boston-based hacker group, active between 1992 and 2000, which issued public warnings about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in programs, including some of Microsoft's business software.
The company then suggested that L0pht could help them by providing private information that Microsoft could use to develop a software patch for flaws before publishing the findings and letting cyberhackers abuse them.
He was also a member of the cooperative Cult of the Dead Cow, which first used the term "hacktivism."
He has previously worked with Google and the Pentagon, where he assisted the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2010 with the tools needed to protect the Department of Defense against cyber-attacks.
Zatko later worked on special projects for Motorola Mobility and Google ATAP.
Newsweek has contacted Twitter and Zatko for further comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jack Dutton is a Newsweek Reporter based in Cape Town, South Africa. His focus is reporting on global politics and ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
