Twitter's former security head alleges company misled regulators about security, bots: reports

Twitter Inc misled federal regulators about its security defenses and spam accounts, CNN and the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing whistleblower disclosures by the social media company's former security chief Peiter Zatko.

Twitter executives don't have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform, and were not motivated to, CNN reported, citing Zatko.

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 $44bn deal alleging Twitter had violated the deal contract.

Musk has accused Twitter of hiding information about how it calculates the percentage of bots on the service. A trial is scheduled for October 17.

The complaint by Zatko was filed last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the department of justice, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, according to the paper.

Zatko did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment, while Musk could not be reached out for a comment.

In January, Twitter said Zatko, a famed hacker more widely known as "Mudge" was no longer its head of security, two years after being appointed to the role.

A Twitter spokesperson said on Tuesday Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter in January 2022 for ineffective leadership and poor performance.