A watchdog is to investigate Twitter after a hacker claimed to have private details linked to more than 400 million accounts. The hacker, “Ryushi”, is demanding $200,000 (£166,000) to hand over the data – reported to include that of some celebrities and delete it. Twitter under investigation after putting ‘400 million’ user details for sale.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) says it “will examine Twitter’s compliance with data protection law in relation to that security issue”. Twitter has not commented on the claim. The data is said to include phone numbers and emails, including those belonging to celebrities and politicians, but the purported size of the haul is not confirmed. Only a small “sample” has so far been made public.
The Guardian reported that Twitter is under investigation as the data of US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was included in the sample of data published by the hacker. The data of broadcaster Piers Morgan, who recently had his Twitter account hacked, is also reported to be included.
Cyber-crime intelligence company Hudson Rock says it was the first to raise the alarm about the data sale. While acknowledging the amount of data taken had not been verified, the firm’s chief technology officer, Alon Gal, told the BBC a number of clues appeared to support the hacker’s claim.
The data did not appear to have been copied from an earlier breach in which details were published from 5.4 million Twitter accounts, Mr Gal said. Only 60 emails out of the sample of 1,000 provided by the hacker in the earlier incident appeared, “so we are confident that this breach is different and significantly bigger”, he said.
