The social media behemoth Twitter was recently dealt a significant setback when significant portions of its source code were published online and made public.
The corporation proceeded promptly to notify GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software engineers, of a copyright violation in order to get the stolen code removed from the site. It is not known how long the code had been available online, although it seems to have been accessible to the public for a number of months.
Twitter has filed a petition with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California requesting that the court require GitHub to disclose the identity of the individual who is responsible for spreading the code as well as any other users that downloaded it.
According to two sources who have been informed on the internal probe, “Twitter initiated an investigation into the leak, and officials handling the subject have guessed that whomever was involved departed the San Francisco-based firm last year.”
One of Twitter’s primary worries is that the code that was stolen has security flaws that might provide cybercriminals or other parties with malicious intent with the tools to access user data or perhaps bring the website down entirely. The organization is concerned that the leak may lead to a data breach or a cyberattack, both of which could be very detrimental to the company’s image and could result in significant financial losses.
The disclosure of Twitter’s source code comes at a time when the company is already grappling with rising financial and structural issues.
Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in October for $44 billion, has been attempting to turn around the fortunes of the social network over the last several months by reducing expenses, offering new features, and inviting back users who had been banned in the past.
Nevertheless, the service has been experiencing an increasing number of outages, and advertisers, who are the primary source of income for the firm, have been unwilling to run advertisements on the website.
The social media firm has suffered a severe blow as a result of the source code for Twitter being publicly disclosed. Twitter has to address both the problem of the leak and the potential security flaws that have been highlighted as a result of the breach.
The organization is responsible for ensuring that the privacy of its users’ data and the safety of its platform. Twitter not only has to find solutions to its structural and financial problems, but it also needs to win back the confidence of its users and advertisers.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.
