Twitter Inc. said Wednesday that an alleged data leak purporting to contain more than 200 million names and email addresses of its users wasn’t the result of exploiting any technical flaws on its platform.
The company said in a blog post that there was “no evidence that the data being sold online was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems.” The troves of user information didn’t match data exposed in previous security incidents, Twitter said.
Last week, an anonymous user on the hacker site BreachForums published a database that they claimed contained basic information on hundreds of millions of Twitter users. Experts previously said they believed those who leaked the data were able to take advantage of a flaw in Twitter’s services for programmers.
“The data is likely a collection of data already publicly available online through different sources,” the company said.
Twitter said Wednesday that users should use two-factor authentication and “remain extra vigilant” when getting emails that could be used to steal their login credentials.
