Hacker issues warning to Elon Musk after putting 40 crore Twitter users' data on sale

A threat actor is claiming to have obtained the personal data of 40 crore Twitter users and is attempting to sell it. The actor shared information about the breach on a website and has even issued a warning to Twitter and Elon Musk.

The malicious actor the user name Ryushi shared a post claiming to have retrieved a database that included emails, phone numbers, and other sensitive information belonging to high-profile users. The details about the original post and the breach were shared via a LinkedIn post by Alon Gal. According to the post by Ryushi, the actor provided a sample of 1,000 accounts to demonstrate the validity of the data, which includes the private information of prominent people like Sundar Pichai, Steve Wozniak, US politician AOC, Kevin O'Leary, and Donald Trump Jr. and more. The account of Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is also on the list.

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The hacker claims that the data was obtained through an exploit in Twitter up to early 2022 and addresses Elon Musk in the post, asking him to buy the data to avoid potential GDPR lawsuits. He provided detailed reasoning for why Musk should listen to his suggestions or face various lawsuits in different countries. 

Business Today checked some of the data put out by the hacker. It seems to contain sensitive information like email ID and, in some cases, even the user's phone number. There is no assurance that the rest of the data is also genuine. 

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The malicious actor has asked Elon Musk to either retrieve all the data put on sale by purchasing the entire stack of information or risk a fine of $276 million. He also warned Musk that if the data of the celebrities is leaked, they will not be able to trust Twitter again and "ruin your dream of twitter video sharing platform for content creators."