WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� A former security chief at Twitter told Congress on Tuesday that the social platform is plagued by weak cyber defenses, privacy threats and the inability to control millions of fake accounts. Peiter 鈥淢udge鈥� Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to lay out his allegations.
鈥淭witter's misleading the public, lawmakers鈥� and regulators, Zatko said as he began his sworn testimony. The platform is 鈥渙ver a decade behind the industry鈥檚 best standard,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is a big deal for all of us.鈥�
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 matter who has keys if there are no locks,鈥� Zatko said.
Zatko was the head of security for the influential platform until he was fired early this year. He filed a whistleblower complaint in July with Congress, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among his most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.
Senators are clearly alarmed.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee, said Zatko has detailed flaws 鈥渢hat may pose a direct threat to Twitter鈥檚 hundreds of millions of users as well as to American democracy.鈥�
鈥淭witter is an immensely powerful platform and can鈥檛 afford gaping vulnerabilities,鈥� he said.
Zatko's claims could also affect Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's attempt to back out of his . Musk claims that Twitter has long underreported spam bots on its platform and cites that as a reason to nix the deal he struck in April.
Many of Zatko鈥檚 claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. Twitter has called Zatko鈥檚 description of events 鈥渁 false narrative ... riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies鈥� and lacking important context.
Zatko also accuses the company of deception in its handling of automated 鈥渟pam bots,鈥� or fake accounts. That allegation is at the core of Musk and Twitter are locked in a bitter legal battle, with Twitter having sued Musk to force him to complete the deal. The Delaware judge overseeing the case that Musk can include new evidence related to Zatko's allegations in the high-stakes trial, which is set to start Oct. 17.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the committee's ranking Republican, said Tuesday that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal declined to testify at the hearing, citing the ongoing legal proceedings with Musk. But the hearing is 鈥渕ore important that Twitter鈥檚 civil litigation in Delaware," Grassley said.
Zatko, 51, first gained prominence in the 1990s as an ethical hacker and later worked in senior positions at an elite Defense Department research unit and at Google. He joined Twitter in late 2020 at the urging of then-CEO Jack Dorsey.
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Marcy Gordon, The Associated Press
