Twitter asks GitHub to identify hackers who leaked source code

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Twitter asks GitHub to identify hackers who leaked source code

Some of its source code has been released online and the social platform owned by Elon Musk is taking legal action to identify the leaker.

According to a court filing on Friday, Twitter is demanding that GitHub, a code-sharing service, identifies who released parts of its source code the underlying software that the service operates on.

GitHub has taken down the leaked code but Twitter has asked the Microsoft-owned business to identify the hackers who posted Twitter s source code on systems operated by GitHub without Twitter s authorisation. The code was posted online by a user who used the name FreeSpeechEnthusiast, in an apparent nod to Musk, referring to himself as a free speech absolutist. The request to identify the leaker was made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which came into force in 1998, according to a court filing by Julian Moore.

According to one expert, leaking source code could cause security vulnerabilities.

Steven Murdoch, professor of security engineering at University College London, said that leaks of source code can allow security vulnerabilities to be identified and may reveal sensitive commercial information. The most valuable resource of Twitter is its brand, customer base, and the skills of its employees. I am not sure if this leak will have a significant long-term effect on the company. Before Musk completed his takeover, Twitter's cybersecurity setup was heavily criticised by a whistleblower. Peiter Mudge Zatko, who was fired in January 2022, claimed that he had discovered extreme egregious deficiencies by Twitter in every area of his mandate, including weak controls of employee access to user data and interference by foreign governments.

The filing on Friday was made after Musk revealed to employees that the business he bought for $44 billion 36 billion in October is now worth less than half that, according to a memo seen by the New York Times. The memo said that Twitter had been four months away from running out of money because it had debts of $13 billion related to the financing of the takeover. The platform, which makes most of its revenue from advertising, has been hit by an advertiser boycott after Musk acquired it, amid concerns about moderation standards and the impact of job cuts.

There has been a request for comment on GitHub. A request for comment from the press office of Twitter was met with an automated reply containing a poo emoji, a policy announced by Musk this month.