Email addresses belonging to more than 200 million Twitter users have been leaked online by hackers, according to cyber security experts.
CNN reports the data breach was first uncovered by Alan Gal, the co-founder of Israeli security firm Hudson Rock. Gal at least 235 million users have been impacted by the hack.
“The database 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,” Gal said on LinkedIn.
“This is one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen,” he added.
Although Twitter has not confirmed the report, security experts say the leaked information includes Twitter users’ names, account handles, follower numbers, and the dates the accounts were created.
“Bad actors have won the jackpot,” Rafi Mendelsohn, a spokesman for social media analysis firm Cyabra, told CNN. “Previously private data such as emails, handles, and creation date can be leveraged to build smarter and more sophisticated hacking, phishing and disinformation campaigns.”
Cyber security analysts trace the latest breach back to 2021, when Twitter experienced a bug in its systems. However, the company confirmed last summer that it’d resolved the incident.
