Ex-employee leaks Twitter's source code: Is Twitter's security under threat
Elon Musk's Twitter has been riddled with various challenges since his takeover. The company is now facing a new hurdle as pieces of its source code were reportedly leaked online. The leakage of the underlying secret computer code on which the platform runs is a massive concern for Twitter, which has been struggling due to technical and revenue-related issues.
Why does this story matter?
The news of Twitter's source code leak comes at a time when the company is on the verge of open-sourcing its codes used to recommend tweets. Musk aims to nullify the challenge from its open-source alternatives by sharing the code. The leakage of source code, on the other hand, is a serious issue as it puts the platform in harm's way.
Twitter moved California court to identify leaker
Parts of Twitter's code were reportedly leaked on GitHub by a user named FreeSpeechEnthusiast. Subsequently, the company, on Friday, sent GitHub a copyright infringement notice to have the code removed. GitHub complied with the notice on the same day. Twitter also moved the US District Court for the Northern District of California to order GiHub to identify FreeSpeechEnthusiast and individuals who downloaded it.
Source code leak puts Twitter in vulnerable position
Source code is one of the closely held secrets of tech companies. They do not share it as they fear it could reveal security vulnerabilities or give competitors an unfair advantage. Twitter's leaked code seemed to have been online for a while, which increases security risks. Considering the company's financial and structural challenges, this is certainly not something it wanted to deal with.
Twitter believes former employee shared code
Twitter is now looking for the person behind the leak. Executives leading the investigation believe that a disgruntled former employee has shared the code. According to the New York Times, the said employee left the company last year. Since Musk's acquisition, over 75% of Twitter's workforce has resigned. If it was a former employee, leaking the code was an attempt at sabotaging Twitter.
Leak makes it easier to look for vulnerabilities
Musk planned to open-source Twitter's code so that anyone could review it and point out its flaws. The current leak makes it a little easier to look for vulnerabilities in the code. However, the company is in a tough position as it does not know the people who saw or downloaded the code. If it can identify them, that might address some concerns.
