A whistle-blower complaint from Twitter Inc.’s former head of security, claiming severe shortcomings in the social media company’s handling of users’ personal data, will have wide ramifications for the business.
US lawmakers vowed to investigate, and the legal team for Elon Musk, who is seeking to abandon his agreement to acquire Twitter, was emboldened by the claims. Twitter shares fell as much as 5% on Tuesday, the biggest intraday drop in more than a month.
The former executive, Peiter Zatko, alleged “egregious deficiencies” in Twitter’s defenses against hackers and other lax approaches to security, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by Bloomberg. Zatko said he had warned colleagues that some of Twitter’s servers were running out-of-date software and that executives had withheld information about breaches and lack of protections for user data.
