Twitter Hackers Stole More Than 200M Emails That Could Lead To Lot Of 'Targeted Phishing And Doxxing,' Says Security Researcher

Twitter suffered a data breach in which hackers stole over 200 million email addresses and posted them on an online hacking forum, according to a security researcher.

What Happened: Details of the hacking were shared by Alon Gal, co-founder and CTO of Israeli cybersecurity monitoring firm Hudson Rock in a LinkedIn post, first noted on Reuters.

Gal said the leaked email database was “circulating heavily" and contains "235,000,000 unique records of Twitter users, and their email addresses and will, unfortunately, lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing, and doxxing."

Twitter did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

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Why It Matters: Gal described it as one of the “most significant” leaks he has seen, adding that the leak would be used to target cryptocurrency Twitter accounts with Ethereum’s ETH/USD symbol in the name. 

He said other adverse effects include hacking of high-profile and political accounts and attacks on accounts with good usernames. 

Not Recent? The hacking could have taken place as far back as 2021, before Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk purchased Twitter, according to Reuters. 

The scale of the breach is yet not clear with earlier accounts pegging the breach at 400 million email addresses.

In July 2020, a Twitter internal tool, used in an infamous Bitcoin BTC/USD scam, led to the compromising of 100 high-profile users including Musk, President Joe Biden, and Bill Gates.  

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