Twitter in data-protection probe after '400 million' user details up for sale

A watchdog is to investigate Twitter after a hacker claimed to have private details linked to more than 400 million accounts.

The hacker, “Ryushi”, is demanding $200,000 (£166,000) to hand over the data - reported to include that of some celebrities - and delete it.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) says it “will examine Twitter’s compliance with data-protection law in relation to that security issue”.

Twitter has not commented on the claim.

The data is said to include phone numbers and emails, including those belonging to celebrities and politicians, but the purported size of the haul is not confirmed. Only a small “sample” has so far been made public.

Twitter has so far not responded to press inquiries about the claimed breach.

That’s a big breach … :exclamation:

Sounds fake. That’s a big risk for so little money. That’s not enough to go undetected for life. I’m thinking that a hacker would realize that.

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Wow! that is a big breach, that’s more than its number of users

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General Twitter Statistics & Facts

This is a collection of general Twitter statistics and facts for 2023.

Key takeaways:

  • There are a total of 1.3 billion Twitter accounts.
  • In the third quarter of 2021, Twitter had 211 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs).
  • 500 million tweets are posted every day.
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Well it wont effect me not being on twitter.

400M phone numbers and email addies …

we all use a hotmail or gmail account when signing up to such sites, don’t we? And, if a phone No. is required, surely these politicians and celebrities have a spare burner phone for such uses. When news channels and websites quote world leaders tweets, I always imagine it’s not really them talking but some PR bod.