The Washington Post reported on complaints filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and Department of Justice by a person who claimed to be a former employee of the social networking site.
The complaints were filed by a law firm. The authenticity of the documents was verified by Whistleblower Aid.
The shares of the company are down.
In a complaint with the SEC, Zatko alleges that he witnessed senior executive engaging in deceptive and/or misleading communications affecting Board members, users and shareholders.
Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, and his wife Vineeta Agarwal, walk to a morning session during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 07, 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho.The company failed to accurately represent four key issues to the board: out-of-date software that lacked basic security measures, "Gross problems" in who could access or
More than a quarter of employee computers have disabled software updates that can provide security patches, according to a report by Zatko. He said that the practice of granting broad access to the platform's production environment was "unheard of in a company of the age and importance of the platform."
If the FTC found that it misled consumers about its security protocols, that could be a violation of its agreement with the FTC. For 20 years, it was not allowed to tell consumers how it protects their security. An independent auditor was required to evaluate the information security program for 10 years.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence received a complaint and is in the process of setting up a meeting to discuss the allegations in more detail, according to a statement. We are serious about this matter.
The whistleblower complaint mentions misrepresentations by Twitter to Elon Musk, who is locked in a legal battle seeking to back out of a deal to purchase the social media company, over the Tesla CEO’s “doubts on the accuracy of Twitter’s claim in legal findings that <5% of accounts are ‘bots,’ or automated spam accounts.”
A lawyer for Zatko said the former employee had no contact with Musk, who withdrew his $44 billion bid for the company in July.
A subpoena has been issued for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding.
If Musk is still on the hook to acquire the company, the Delaware Court of Chancery will rule in October.
According to Zatko, the CEO's statement that the company is "strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much junk mail as we possibly can" was a lie. He said that senior management didn't want to measure the prevalence of bot accounts because it would hurt the company's image.
According to Zatko, the company didn't have proper security controls. The Washington Post reported that about 7,000 employees had access to the company's internal software.
In January, Zatko was fired for poor performance.
There is a false narrative about the privacy and data security practices of the company. The timing and allegations of Mr. Zatko appear to be designed to hurt the company and its customers. Privacy and security have always been a priority for the company as a whole.
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