A security researcher said on Wednesday that the popular microblogging service Twitter has had another data breach. With the email addresses of over 200 million users having been exposed and posted on a hacker site.
According to Reuters, Alon Gal, co-founder of the Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring company Hudson Rock stated on his LinkedIn that this is one of the biggest breaches he has ever come across.
Gal said that this breach, “will, unfortunately, lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing, and doxxing.”
On Wednesday, screenshots of the hacker forum where the data was released were shared online. There are currently no hints that might help us identify the hacker(s) responsible for this breach.
The Israeli cybersecurity company Hudson Rock reported its second data intrusion.
It claims that about 400 million accounts were compromised in late December and, the corresponding email addresses and phone numbers were made public.
According to BBC, the hacker known only as “Ryushi” told Twitter to avoid purchasing any significant data protection and to purchase the disclosed data “exclusively” from him.
The creator of the breach reporting website, the stolen information appeared to be “pretty much what it’s been described as” According to Tory Hunt.
The US Federal Trade Commission and the Data Protection Commission in Ireland which have been monitoring the corporation for compliance with European data protection standards and US consent orders respectively may possibly conduct investigations into this data breach.