Twitter whistleblower: what questions will Peiter Zatko face from lawmakers?
Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, will appear in front of lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday. He is expected to give damning evidence of data and information security failings at the social media platform, having outlined a litany of concerns in a whistleblower complaint last month.
The former hacker, widely respected in his field as an information security specialist, joined Twitter on 16 November 2020 and was fired on 19 January 2022. His complaint levels allegations of incompetence and fraud at Twitter, saying that he uncovered “extreme, egregious deficiencies by Twitter in every area of his mandate”, including weak controls of employee access to user data and interference by foreign governments.
The senate judiciary committee hearing is not directly for the benefit of Elon Musk, who is trying to pull out of a $44bn (£38bn) deal to buy Twitter and has been given permission to include Zatko’s revelations as another reason for walking away. Musk’s lawyers interviewed Zatko on 9 September. But if Zatko’s actions are going to have an immediate impact, it will be at a trial in Delaware on 17 October, where Twitter is attempting to force Musk to buy the company under terms he agreed in April.
Here are some questions that Zatko might face on Tuesday.
This is a catch-all question that is likely to be broken down into multiple parts in terms of lawmaker questions, given the amount of detail in the allegations contained within Zatko’s complaint.
He is likely to be asked about several claims, including that Twitter mishandled user email addresses and phone numbers, that more than 50% of its 500,000 data centre servers are running software that is out of date or has other known security problems, and that
Read more on theguardian.com
