Twitter Hacked! 200 Million User's Email Address And Selled At The Online Forum

The biggest hack occurred on Twitter. (photo: dock. Pixabay)

JAKARTA Hackers have stolen email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on online hacking forums. This was revealed by a security researcher, on Wednesday, December 4.

The violation will lead to multiple hacking, targeted phishing, and doxxing, wrote Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity monitoring firm Hudson Rock, on LinkedIn. "This is one of the most significant leaks I've ever seen," he said as quoted by Reuters.

Twitter has not commented on the report, which Gal first posted on social media on December 24, or responded to questions about this breach since that date. It is not clear what action, if any, Twitter is taking to investigate or restore the matter.

Reuters was unable to independently verify that the data on the forum was genuine and came from Twitter. Screenshots of a hacker forum, where data emerged last Wednesday, have been circulating online.

Troy Hunt, creator of the crash notification site Have I Been Pwned, looked at the leaked data and said on Twitter that it seemed "as described".

There are no clues about the identity or location of the hacker or the hacker behind the breach. It may have happened as early as 2021, before Elon Musk took over the company's holdings last year.

Claims about the size and scope of the initially varied with the initial account in December that 400 million email addresses and phone numbers had been stolen.

Major breaches on Twitter may be of interest to regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Twitter is headquartered in Europe, and the US Federal Trade Commission has monitored compliance with Elon Musk's company with European data protection regulations and US approval orders.

Messages left by the two regulators were not immediately returned on Thursday.