By : thoughtfulnews.com January 2, 2023

Watchdogs are said to be investigating Twitter after hackers claimed to have linked personal data to more than 400 million accounts.

Hacker ‘Ryushi’ has turned over data reportedly containing that of some celebrities and is demanding $200,000 (£166,000) to erase it.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) said it would “consider twitter’s compliance with data protection law in relation to this security issue”.

Twitter has not commented on the allegations.
The Guardian reported that a data sample released by hackers included data on US Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Twitter has not yet responded to press inquiries about the alleged infringement.

Elon Musk, CEO of major cyber security he did not respond to a request for comment tweeted by reporter Bryan Krebs, but as Krebs points out,

Tesla’s boss It is likely that a violation occurred before handing over.

View Orignal Tweet On Twitter :

Hudson Rock, a cybercrime intelligence firm, said it issued the first warning about selling the data.

The company’s chief technology officer, Alon Gal, told the thoughtfulnews that many clues had emerged to support the hackers’ claims, while acknowledging that the amount of data extracted had not been verified.


Additionally, Gal said:
“The hacker aims to sell the database through his escrow service offered on cybercrime forums. Usually this is only done for genuine offers. “

Multimillion-Dollar Question

“Ryushi” claims to have exploited an issue in a system that allows computer programs to connect to Twitter and compile data.

Twitter said he fixed a system vulnerability in 2022. However, it is believed that this vulnerability was also used in previous breaches that affected more than 5 million accounts.

The DPC announced on Dec. 23 that it was investigating this earlier violation.

The European Commission, with Twitter’s European headquarters in Dublin, is the main body overseeing compliance with EU data protection regulations.

In a statement to the thoughtfulnews about the latest incident, the DPC noted an ongoing investigation into previous Twitter breaches, but added:
“Several additional datasets are reportedly currently for sale on the dark web.

“The DPC is cooperating with twitter in this investigation and confirms Twitter’s compliance with privacy laws regarding this security issue.”

Hackers are aware of the damage data loss can do to a platform.

In an online post about selling data, twitter warns that the best way to avoid hefty privacy fines is to buy back data “single-handedly.”

“We are in dialogue with Twitter’s Data Protection Officer and will look into this matter,” the company said.
It added that it would co-operate with the Data Protection Commission of Ireland.