Twitter hacked, 200 million user email addresses leaked, researcher says
- The breach ‘will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing,’ said Alon Gal of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock
- Twitter has not commented on the report, which Gal described as ‘one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen’
Hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum, a security researcher said on Wednesday.
The breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing,” Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock, wrote on LinkedIn. He called it “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen.”
Twitter has not commented on the report, which Gal first posted about on social media on December 24, nor responded to inquiries about the breach since that date. It was not clear what action, if any, Twitter has taken to investigate or remediate the issue.
Reuters could not independently verify the data on the forum was authentic and came from Twitter. Screenshots of the hacker forum, where the data appeared on Wednesday, have circulated online.
Troy Hunt, creator of breach-notification site Have I Been Pwned, viewed the leaked data and said on Twitter that it seemed “pretty much what it’s been described as.”
There were no clues to the identity or location of the hacker or hackers behind the breach. It may have taken place as early as 2021, which was before Elon Musk took over ownership of the company last year.
