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Zatko, previously a well-known hacker, was recruited by Twitter in late-2020 months after a very public breach saw many high-influence accounts hijacked. Zatko was let go less than two years later, yet claims to have witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, wilful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy” according to his whistleblower complaint filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department.

Zatko further alleges that Twitter lacked basic security controls, including blocking automatic security fixes on employee devices, disabled system firewalls, remote desktop access enabled for non-approved purposes, and actively failing to monitor what employees were doing on their computers. As a result, employees were found to be “repeatedly and intentionally installing spyware at the request of external organisations”.

Ralph Chammah, Chief Executive Officer of OwlGaze, argues that Twitter’s cybersecurity negligence highlights the fact that organisations must take responsibility for preventing staff from accessing core software and sensitive information by putting the correct processes and controls in place.

“Twitter’s latest cybersecurity failings remind us that that organisations everywhere must get the fundamentals of cybersecurity correct. This ranges from ensuring only the right staff have access to information they require specific to their company role, to understanding the sensitivity of the type of data an organisation possesses.

“Whilst it’s imperative to prevent cyber-attacks from happening externally, it is just as important to prevent internal threats as well. One way to achieve this is to detect early signs of suspicious behaviour, and UEBA based technologies can be key in highlighting odd behaviours that might lead to cyber threats in the future.

“Rather than one single event, cyber-attacks are multiple events that occur in a chronological order where time is a variable. A next-gen SIEM software is a great way to detect malicious behaviour as it can identify complex cyber-attacks before they adversely impact an organisation’s business continuity or treasury. An AI powered advanced correlation engine can analyse events with contextual information to predict cyber threats, opposed to detecting them at the impact stage.

“Additionally, following the recent news that ransomware and other cyber-attacks are soon to be excluded from cyber insurance policies, it is imperative that businesses take the necessary steps to prevent cyber threats from arising on both internal and external battlefronts. The costs to your business, both financial and reputational, are already staggering and only growing more so – with the average cost of a data breach exceeding $4 million in 2021. Most recently, for example, we’ve seen widely-publicised cases of ransomware attacks on the NHS in England and a hospital in France extorted for a ransom of $10 million, proving how far-reaching the damages can be and that no sector is safe.

“Organisations across all industries need to stay ahead of increasingly complex cyber threats, both internal and external to their organisations. With the potential damages to their reputation and finances only growing, taking every predictive and proactive precaution to counter threats even before they arise is an absolute necessity.”