Highlights:
- Former famous hacker Peiter Zatko joins Twitter as their Head of Security
- Peiter Zatko aka Mudge will directly report to the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Jack Dorsey
- Mudge confirmed the news by saying, “I’m very excited to be joining the executive team at Twitter!”
Just a few months ago, in July this year, many high profile Twitter account including of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk were hacked which is now popularly known as the Bitcoin Hack and Twitter was slammed by the users after the major security breach.
Also Read: Twitter Hack: High Profile Accounts Hacked In Bitcoin Scam Including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden (LINK: https://www.techtalkcounty.com/twitter-hack-high-profile-accounts-hacked-in-bitcoin-scam-including-elon-musk-bill-gates-joe-biden/)
Since then, Twitter has been taking measures to strengthen its security and protect its users from security breaches.
In the recent news, Twitter has now appointed former famous hacker Peiter Zatko who is popular by his hacker name “Mudge” as the Head of Security.
Mudge has previously worked with organisations such as L0pht, Google as Deputy Director – Advanced Technology And Projects (ATAP), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), BBN Technologies, @stake among others. As for working with Twitter, Mudge confirmed the news by tweeting, “Looks like the cat is out of the bag. I’m very excited to be joining the executive team at Twitter! I truly believe in the mission of (equitably) serving the public conversation. I will do my best!”
Looks like the cat is out of the bag.
— Mudge (@dotMudge) November 16, 2020
I’m very excited to be joining the executive team at Twitter!
I truly believe in the mission of (equitably) serving the public conversation.
I will do my best! https://t.co/ZQkhYTXLQZ
As the new Head of Security at Twitter, Mudge will be responsible to combat anything and everything from engineering missteps to misinformation. It is also being said that Mudge will report directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter Jack Dorsey.
As of now, it is reported that Mudge would only take over after a 45-to-60-day review of Twitter’s current measures and practices.
Mudge said that he will examine “information security, site integrity, physical security, platform integrity – which starts to touch on abuse and manipulation of the platform – and engineering,” during an exclusive interview.
The US-based microblogging platform has faced a handful of security challenges in the past and the most recent one among them has been the famous Bitcoin Scam which was mentioned above. Apart from that, a year ago, the US Government had accused two men of spying for Saudi Arabia while they were working at Twitter as per International news agency Reuters.
It was reported that the Twitter employees passed along private information about the kingdom’s critics.
Alex Stamos, a former Chief Security Officer at Facebook said, “The data breach this summer was an important reminder of how far Twitter needs to go in building some of the basic security functions necessary to run a service targeted by adversaries much more skilled than the teenagers arrested for that incident”.
Stamos is the current Stanford researcher who has helped lead efforts to fight election disinformation.
Stamos, who once worked for Mudge’s security consultancy, called him a great fit for a company which is lacking the financial muscle of Facebook and Google. “They are going to have to find creative solutions to these problems, and if Mudge is famous for anything in security, it is being creative,” he added.
Peiter Zatko said that he is committed to improving public conversations on the platform. He also praised a recent move which was aimed to increase “friction” by prompting the users to comment instead of simply retweeting someone’s tweet.
Mudge also said, “They (Twitter) are willing to take some risks. With the challenges of algorithms and algorithmic bias, they are not standing by and waiting until someone else solves the problem.”
