EXPLAINER: Why Twitter's former security head is testifying
Peiter Zatko, the former Twitter security chief who’s accused the company of negligence with privacy and security in a whistleblower complaint, will testify before Congress on Tuesday.
Zatko is well-respected in the cybersecurity space, which gives his complaints extra weight. But so far he has little documentary support for his claims — unlike the Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, whose complaint last year included troves of internal documents from the company now called Meta.
Zatko’s accusations are also playing into Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s battle with Twitter to get out of his $44 billion bid to buy the company. The Delaware judge overseeing that case has ruled that Musk can include new evidence related to Zatko’s allegations in the high-stakes trial set to start Oct. 17.
Twitter calls Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative.”
WHO IS PEITER ZATKO?
Better known by his hacker handle “Mudge,” Zatko is a highly respected cybersecurity expert who first gained prominence in the 1990s and later worked in senior positions at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Agency and Google.
He joined Twitter at the urging of then-CEO Jack Dorsey in late 2020, the same year the company suffered an embarrassing security breach in which hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls — including Musk — in an attempt to scam their followers out of bitcoin. Zatko served as Twitter’s security chief until he was fired early this year.
WHAT ARE HIS ACCUSATIONS AGAINST TWITTER?
Zatko's complaint alleges that the company misled regulators about its poor cybersecurity defenses and its negligence in attempting to root out fake accounts that spread disinformation, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with U.S. officials.
Among...
