July is not a good month for Twitter. Two weeks after being the target of a large-scale hack, allowing hackers to impersonate public figures (Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, etc.) to spread a cryptocurrency scam, the network social is accused of not ensuring the privacy of its users internally.
The American media Bloomberg indeed affirms in a new report that the employees of Twitter would have for habit of spying the accounts of celebrities thanks to tools made available to them to provide support to the users of the platform.
Originally, these tools were developed to allow Twitter employees to reset an account or respond to a content violation. Some employees of the social network have allegedly diverted them from their initial use to spy on and hack artist accounts, notably Beyoncé's. They could thus have recovered personal information such as telephone numbers or email addresses. Abusive acts known to Twitter, but for which no suitable measures have been taken.
A known practice of Twitter
“The controls were so porous that at one point in 2017 and 2018 some employees played a kind of game by creating bogus support requests that allowed them to dig into celebrity accounts, including Beyoncé's. , to track the personal data of stars, including their approximate location, gleaned from the IP addresses of their devices… ”, explains Bloomberg in its report.
The media specifies that some of the employees at fault come from Cognizant Technology Solutions, a subcontractor with which Twitter works. Bloomberg believes that this practice has been commonplace within Twitter for several years and would be well known to the social network. The practice was not seen as an urgent threat to Twitter, several sources told Bloomberg.
While some employees have already been dismissed for this reason, internal espionage and account hacking are still practiced today by Twitter employees or contractors.
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- High Tech
- Elon musk
- Celebrities
- Barack obama
- Social networks
- Spying
- Beyonce