He is one of the world’s most famous hackers and leading cybersecurity experts.
Now Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has become a whistleblower and submitted a string of allegations of repeated security violations by his former employer: Twitter.
Mr Zatko, 51, was the company’s head of security from November 2020 to January 2022. He was allegedly fired by CEO Parag Agrawal after he flagged the issues and began cooperating in a formal investigation with Twitter’s compliance officer.
Now he has given his findings to US regulatory agencies, which in turn have been shared with members of the US Congress.
In the document, Mr Zatko makes a string of allegations against Twitter, accusing the company’s top executives of violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.
He claims that the company has not been honest about privacy issues and data security and has been subject to major breaches by foreign governments.
It comes just weeks before Elon Musk’s legal showdown with Twitter as he tries to extricate himself from a $44bn deal to buy the company.
The entrepreneur has alleged that Twitter has not been honest about the number of fake or bot accounts on the platform.
Mr Zatko says in his documentation that the company has been “lying about bots” to Mr Musk and that an accurate account of those accounts would negatively impact the bonuses paid to senior executives.
Mr Zatko’s allegations were sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, and the civil and antitrust divisions of the Justice Department, according to CNN.
In a statement to The Independent, a Twitter spokesperson said that Mr Zatko had been fired by the company for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.”
“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” the statement says.
“Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be. “
These are the most serious allegations made against Twitter.
Mr Zatko claims that Twitter’s security issues were a matter of national security and that they hired two people he believes were agents of India’s government.
He alleges that the employees had “direct unsupervised access” to the company’s internal information.
In the documents, he says that the US government told the company in 2022 that at least one of their employees was working for a foreign intelligence agency.
He also says that before he became CEO, Mr Agrawal had supported Twitter’s expansion in Russia, despite the censorship and surveillance in the country.
This is one of the main issues in Mr Musk’s decision to walk away from his $44bn deal to buy the platform.
