Breaking: SEC Probing Twitter Security Breach Pre-Musk Takeover

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into Twitter’s data and privacy security breach which happened before Tesla boss Elon Musk took over the social media platform. 

SEC Begins Probing Former Twitter Executives

Markedly, the regulator opened the investigation to scrutinize the way the former leadership of the company, which was recently rebranded to the X app, handled some security flaws that happened back in 2018. At the time, Twitter suffered several security breaches featuring on one occasion, the discovery of a computer virus.

Precisely, the SEC is considering if the top executives at the time failed to properly inform shareholders of the privacy issues. The executives in question include Twitter’s former Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and former Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal.

Noteworthy, Agrawal became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company in 2021 after Jack Dorsey exited.

The agency is also looking at whether the appropriate controls were put in place prior to the attack. Sadly, the breach led to the exposure of users’ personal information as the bug which was planted on the social media platform gave the perpetrators access to private information like users’ email addresses. Also, the bug exposed the names of countries where users’ accounts are based.

According to one of the sources who asked to remain anonymous, this move revealed the identity of users to the bad actors. In the meantime, nothing has been said about an enforcement action especially as none of these executives have been accused of doing any wrong. It is also not clear when the review will come to an end.

SEC Also Probing Elon Musk’s Twitter Buyout

Last year, Elon Musk took over Twitter after making a $44 billion bid for the company. Immediately he assumed the position of CEO, he went on a retrenchment spree which eventually affected both Agrawal and Segal. It is worth noting that Musk had attempted to cancel his buyout decision due to the controversies surrounding some of the security concerns under probe at this time. 

Amidst the current probe, the U.S. SEC is also investigating Musk over his acquisition of the social media platform. The regulator is seeking to know if the billionaire violated federal securities laws during his stock purchases and through subsequent statements and filings related to the deal.