Twitter Denies Data Leak That Hit 200 Million Users, Says It Was Not A Result Of Flaw In Its Systems

Twitter has denied a data leak that apparently hit 200 million of its users and their information was being sold online.

We take our responsibility to protect your privacy very seriously, Twitter said. ( Image: Getty )

Twitter has denied a data leak that apparently hit 200 million of its users and their information was being sold online. The data hack that resulted in 200 million names and email IDs of Twitter users was not a result of a security bug on the micro-blogging platform's systems, Twitter has said.

"We take our responsibility to protect your privacy very seriously. In response to recent media reports of Twitter users' data being sold online, we conducted a thorough investigation and there is no evidence that data recently being sold was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems. We also want to share an update about an incident that took place earlier this year, and provide transparency into the steps we took to remediate it," Twitter wrote in a blog post late on Wednesday.

According to the Elon Musk-owned company, the troves of user information did not match with the leaked data in previous security incidents.

"...Therefore, based on information and intel analyzed to investigate the issue, there is no evidence that the data being sold online was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems. The data is likely a collection of data already publicly available online through different sources. 

"We are in contact with Data Protection Authorities and other relevant regulators from different countries to provide clarification about the alleged incidents, and we will continue to do so," the company added.

To recall, earlier last week, a database with basic information of hundreds of millions of Twitter users was posted on hacker website BreachForums by an anonymous user. The hacker calling himself StayMad reportedly leaked the personal data of over 200 million users, including of high-profile accounts such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Donald Trump Jr., SpaceX, CBS Media, NBA, WHO and more. Co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock Alon Gal first reported the sale of the breached data.