Twitter has reportedly suffered a major data breach in which hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million users and posted them on an online hacking forum, according to cybersecurity experts.
On Wednesday, cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock’s co-founder, Alon Gal, stated that the breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing” and called it “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen.”
The data, which is being offered for free on the forum, includes email addresses used to set up Twitter accounts and could potentially reveal the identities of anonymous users.
Some tech and cybersecurity experts tweeted they have downloaded and verified the authenticity of some of the email addresses in the leaked data.
While it is unclear when the hack occurred, some have speculated that it could have taken place as early as 2021.
Neither Twitter nor Elon Musk has commented on the breach.
This news comes after Hudson Rock warned about unverified claims by a hacker named Ryushi last week, who claimed to have emails and phone numbers linked to 400 million Twitter accounts and demanded $200,000 from the platform in exchange for the data and its deletion.
While the data currently being offered online is smaller in size and does not include phone numbers, it was posted by a different individual.
The authenticity and completeness of the hacked data remains uncertain at this stage, it is possible that the data could be a combination of previous breaches and fake details.