Ex-staff, Zatko, equips Elon Musk against Twitter in acquisition case

Twitter’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko, has released an 84-page whistleblower complaint disclosing the lapses of the social media company, including its misinformation about bot accounts.

Zatko, who was sacked in January due to poor performance, said Twitter executives misinformed the board and regulators and the Company has an inferior security in its servers and software.

The whistleblower’s statement comes at a period Elon Musk and Twitter are on a collision over user data, pertaining to bot accounts, which the company said is below 5%, but the billionaire insist its more.

Ripples Nigeria had reported that Musk had pulled out of the deal on the basis of Twitter misinforming the market on the level of spam accounts, while also faulting the firm of breaching contractual agreement – Twitter denied both claims.

With the court trial regarding the completion of the $44 billion acquisition deal almost two months away, Zatko’s claims could create a huge blow for the social networking company during its faceoff with Musk at the Delaware Court on October 17.

Read also: Elon Musk demands Jack Dorsey release Twitter information on user metric

Zatko, who happens to be a famous hacker, said the flaw in Twitter’s server and software security could result into hacking, disinformation campaigns by bad actors, and foreign espionage.

He said Twitter doesn’t have necessary resources to understand the bot problem facing the company, so there’s no motivation to comprehend it. However, Twitter Chief Executive, Parag Agrawal, told employees that some of Zatko’s claims are false, inaccurate and baseless.

This was contained in a memo, which reads, “We are reviewing the redacted claims that have been published but what we have seen so far is a false narrative that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and presented without important context.” Agrawal told employees.

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