Twitter’s ex-security chief says company lied about security, bots: Report

Twitter Inc misled federal regulators about its defenses against hackers and spam accounts, the social media company’s former security chief Peiter Zatko said in a whistleblower complaint.

In an 84-page complaint, Zatko, a famed hacker more widely known as “Mudge,” alleged Twitter falsely claimed it had a solid security plan and said he had warned colleagues that half the company’s servers were running out-of-date and vulnerable software, according to documents relayed by congressional investigators.

The whistleblower filing comes as the social media company is embroiled in a legal battle with Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk after the world’s richest person said in July he was ending an agreement to buy the company in a $44 billion deal alleging it had violated the deal contract.