Data Breach

Twitter: 200M dataset was not obtained through the exploitation of flaws in its systems

Twitter said that its investigation revealed that users’ data offered for sale online was not obtained from its systems.

Twitter provided an update on its investigation launched after data of 200 Million users were offered for sale online. The company has found “no evidence” that the data were obtained by hacking into its systems.

TwitterTwitter

Below are the key findings that emerged from the investigation:

  • 5.4 million user accounts reported in November were the same exposed in August 2022.
  • The 400 million records exposed in the second alleged breach could not be correlated with the previously reported incident, nor with any new incident.
  • 200 million dataset could not be correlated with the previously reported incident, the data are not obtained through the exploitation of flaws in Twitter systems.
  • 400 million and 200 million datasets were the same, the second one was obtained from the first one by removing duplicated entries.
  • None of the datasets analyzed contained passwords or information that could lead to passwords being compromised.

The company pointed out that the huge trove of data is likely part of a publicly available dataset originating from different sources. 

“Based on information and intel analyzed to investigate the issue, there is no evidence that the data being sold online was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems,” reads the update provided by the company. “The data is likely a collection of data already publicly available online through different sources.”

Alon Gal, Co-Founder & CTO at Hudson Rock, doesn’t agree with Twitter’s statement and confirmed the authenticity of the leak.

“Yesterday Twitter posted a statement on the recent 200,000,000 data breach. Having discussed it with other security professionals and conducting my own research around it, I believe that my previous assessment is still valid.” said Gal. “For example, the authenticity of the leak is evident in the lack of false positives between Twitter usernames and emails found in the database, opposite to cases of data enrichments.”

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Twitter)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

US Treasury sanctioned the firm Funnull Technology as major cyber scam facilitator

The U.S. sanctioned Funnull Technology and Liu Lizhi for aiding romance scams that caused major…

4 hours ago

ConnectWise suffered a cyberattack carried out by a sophisticated nation state actor<gwmw style="display:none;"></gwmw><gwmw style="display:none;"></gwmw>

ConnectWise detected suspicious activity linked to a nation-state actor, impacting a small number of its…

6 hours ago

Victoria’s Secret ‘s website offline following a cyberattack

Victoria’s Secret took its website offline after a cyberattack, with experts warning of rising threats…

23 hours ago

China-linked APT41 used Google Calendar as C2 to control its TOUGHPROGRESS malware

Google says China-linked group APT41 controlled malware via Google Calendar to target governments through a…

1 day ago

New AyySSHush botnet compromised over 9,000 ASUS routers, adding a persistent SSH backdoor.

GreyNoise researchers warn of a new AyySSHush botnet compromised over 9,000 ASUS routers, adding a…

1 day ago

Czech Republic accuses China’s APT31 of a cyberattack on its Foreign Ministry

The Czech government condemned China after linking cyber espionage group APT31 to a cyberattack on…

2 days ago