New Delhi, Aug 23 : Former Twitter security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has claimed that the Indian government made Twitter employ an “government agent” and give access to users’ sensitive information, a claim that has been discredited by Twitter.Zatko’s whistleblower information in the form of an 84-page report sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) The disclosure was discovered from CNN as well as The Washington Post on Tuesday.
In a section entitled “Penetration by Foreign Intelligence & Threats to Democracy In the section titled ‘Penetration by Foreign Intelligence and Threats Zatko stated that “the Indian government forced Twitter to employ a specific individual(s) that were government officials, who (because of Twitter’s basic architectural weaknesses) could have access to huge amount of Twitter sensitive information”.
“By knowingly allowing an Indian government agent unsupervised access to Twitter’s systems and the data of its users, Twitter executives violated the company’s obligations to its users,” he claimed.
Zatko who reported directly to CEO Zatko, was dismissed by Twitter in January of this year for “poor performance”.
In the last month, he filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and accused Twitter of misleading shareholders and breaking an agreement it entered into with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to adhere to certain security standards.
In an announcement addressed to Spectrum News, a Twitter spokesperson stated that Zatko was an unhappy former employee who has been making false claims.
“Zatko was dismissed from his executive position as a senior executive at Twitter in January 2022 due to poor leadership and ineffective performance,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“What we’ve seen thus far is a misleading narrative concerning Twitter as well as our privacy and security practices that are rife with inconsistencies, errors and is lacking important details,” the company spokesperson added.
Zatko also claimed that the Indian government had forced Twitter to employ local full-time employees who “could be used to gain leverage”.
“The danger of damage to Twitter employees was enough to make Twitter to seriously think about the possibility of complying with foreign government demands that Twitter would otherwise strongly reject,” he claimed.
na/vd
