US media reported that a former Twitter executive has filed a lawsuit against the company alleging “fatal flaws in every area of the social network’s functions”, including privacy, digital and physical security, platform integrity and Content monitoring has disclosed. .
The complaint was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month and was disclosed on Tuesday by Peter Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, who was fired earlier this year.
The Securities and Exchange Commission declined The Wall Street Journal’s request for comment. A similar complaint has been filed with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The Ministry of Justice declined to comment. The Federal Trade Commission also did not respond to a request for comment.
From taking money from untrustworthy Chinese sources to the company succumbing to Russian censorship demands, Twitter executives, including current CEO Parag Agrawal, deliberately put Twitter users and employees at risk in pursuit of short-term growth, Zatko alleges.
The Zatko report claimed that the US government provided Twitter with specific evidence shortly before its firing that at least one of the company’s employees, and possibly more, was working for another government intelligence service.
The report does not say whether Twitter acted on the US government’s advice or whether the offer was valid.
The complaint states that Zatco alleges that the Indian government forced the company to intentionally hire at least one employee who had access to “masses of sensitive data on Twitter.” The Indian embassy in Washington did not respond to The Wall Street Journal’s request for comment.
Zatko revealed that in the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Agrawal — then Twitter’s chief technology officer — was prepared to make big concessions to the Kremlin.
Zatko alleges that Agrawal suggested to Zatko that Twitter comply with Russia’s demands, which could lead to widespread censorship or surveillance.
The report does not provide exact details of what Agrawal proposed. But last summer, Russia passed a law pressuring tech platforms to open local offices in the country or face a possible advertising ban, a move that Western security experts said could give Russia more leverage over American tech companies.
CNN attempted to get detailed comments from Twitter on more than 50 questions about the case.
Twitter did not respond to CNN’s questions about foreign intelligence risks, but a spokesperson for the company said that Zatko’s claims are generally “full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack significant context.”
Earlier this month, a US jury convicted a former Twitter employee of spying for Saudi Arabia by passing on information about users critical of the kingdom in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars while working for the company from 2013 to 2015. .
Shares of Twitter fell 7.3 percent in trading on Tuesday, hitting their lowest close in nearly a month.
According to Charles Elson, founding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, the new lawsuit adds a new dimension to the complaint about US billionaire Elon Musk’s intention to leave the company.
“He argues that he was misled by Twitter, and that’s what the complaint says,” Elson told the Wall Street Journal.
Elson added that Zatko will be introduced as part of the discovery process, and that a judge will be tasked with deciding whether the allegations have a material impact on Musk’s case.
In 2011 Twitter reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to maintain strict security, including limiting the number of employees who can access key security and privacy controls. Zatco claims that the company has violated this contract with the state commission.
ZATCO data leaked from Twitter’s internal cybersecurity dashboard shows that four out of 10 employee devices — representing thousands of laptops — don’t have basic protections such as firewalls and automatic software updates enabled.
Employees can also install third-party software on their computers with few technical restrictions, the statement said, which in many cases has led to unauthorized spyware being installed on their devices at the request of third-party organizations.
In response to CNN, Twitter said employees use devices that are monitored by other IT and security teams and can prevent the device from communicating with sensitive internal systems if they’re running outdated software.
Source: Lebanon Debate
