More than 5.4 million Twitter user records are now in a massive data file on the dark web, which includes their personal phone numbers and email addresses.
The dump was identified by Chad Lauder, founder of the cybersecurity education company Habitu8, who posted the news on his Twitter account on November 23, and his account was suspended shortly after publication. .
Lauder announced that the attack affected users in the European Union and the United States and that the data exposed was sufficient to launch phishing attacks to obtain login credentials.
The removal of Lauder's tweets and his comment raised fears that Twitter was trying to hide the problem, as some of the social network's pioneers said that Musk "banned Lauder for exposing how weak Twitter's security was," according to a report by the British newspaper "The Daily Mail".
User data was first posted on a hacking forum at a price of $30,000 last July, but the latest deal offers that information for free, according to Bleeping Computer.
The hackers are believed to have obtained the information in December 2021 using a Twitter vulnerability disclosed in the HackerOne bug bounty program.
Twitter confirmed in August that bad actors exploited the vulnerability, but fixed the bug in January 2022.
At the time, Twitter reported that it had "no evidence" that the flaw was exploited.
Bleeping Computer reported that it was Bomburen, the owner of the hacking hacking forum, who was responsible for exploiting the flaw at the end of 2021 and created the extensive database which was then spread online by a hacker known as "Devil".
This hacker listed a user's account record on the dark web in July, and it is believed that two parties purchased the information for less than $30,000.
On top of the 5.4 million records, there were an additional 1.4 million Twitter user profiles collected using a different API.
This indicates that several people, or hacking groups, have taken advantage of this flaw since last December.
Last September, and as recently as November 24, 5.4 million Twitter records were shared for free in a hacking forum.
Bleeping also warned about malicious emails from Twitter, as they are likely to be fake and designed to steal login credentials.
If you receive an email claiming that your account has been suspended, having problems logging in, or that you are about to lose your verification status, and asking you to log into a site other than Twitter, ignore and delete the emails as they are likely to be phishing attempts. fraudulent.
Lauder sounded the alarm about the latest data dump in a tweet, "Just received evidence of a massive Twitter data breach affecting millions of Twitter accounts in the European Union and the United States. I have contacted a sample of affected accounts and they confirmed the accuracy of the compromised data. This breach has never happened before." 2021.
