Notes

Back in January of 2023, Twitter was in the middle of another breach. A criminal hacker had leaked over two-hundred and twenty million users' email addresses. The hacker, who goes by the name 'Ryushi', initially demanded $200k to hand over or delete the stolen info. A week later, after presumably being rebuffed by Twitter, the hacker put the data up for sale on the hacking forum known as Breached. Although it appears that no personal info beyond email addresses was compromised, the incident poses significant privacy risks. For instance, many people can be easily identified by their email address - particularly if they use their name or the name of their business. This could be particularly troublesome for celebrities and other high-profile figures. The cyber crime intelligence firm, Hudson Rock, says it was the first to raise the alarm about the sale of the data. Alon Gal, the organization's co-founder, believes that the damage could extend beyond simple cyber crimes. "This database is going to be used by hackers, political hacktivists, and of course, governments to harm our privacy further," he said. Some people believe that this data breach could also be in relation to several data breaches Twitter dealt with back in 2022 where over 5.4 million users' data was stolen back in between January and August of 2022, although Twitter themselves claims that they have conducted research in regards to the alleged breaches in between January 2022 and January 2023 and stated that there was "no evidence of users' data being sold on hacker forums."

This breach falls under confidentiality since personal data that was supposed to be kept between Twitter and the individual users was breached.