Top Twitter Security Officers Resign Amid Chaos; FTC Tracking Developments “With Deep Concern”
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Twitter’s Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner has left the company along with others overseeing security and privacy at the social media platform thrown into chaos after Elon Musk took the reins.
“I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done,” Kissner tweeted.
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Twitter’s chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer have also quit over the past 24 hours, according to news reports citing an employee’s internal Slack message, and the FTC is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern.”
The staffers were said to be worried about the rollout of new features on Twitter without the full security reviews required by a Federal Trade Commission consent decree, which could add a regulatory headache to the many others facing Twitter right now.” And they were right.
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern. No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them,” said Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s Director of Public Affairs, in statement unusual for the agency.
The consent decree resulted from alleged security breaches at the company. It requires Twitter “in connection with the offering of any product or service” to “establish and implement, and thereafter maintain, a comprehensive information security program that is reasonably designed to protect the security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of nonpublic consumer information. Such program, the content and implementation of which must be fully documented in writing, shall contain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to respondent’s size and complexity, the nature and scope of respondent’s activities, and the sensitivity of the nonpublic consumer information.”
The statement comes after Twitter’s tortured $8 Blue-Check verification program created a surge in “verified” fake accounts.
Musk closed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter two weeks ago and laid off about half the workforce. In an email to employees who survived the cuts, Musk said Twitter might “not survive the upcoming economic downturn” without significant subscription revenue, like Blue-Check.
Advertising, Twitter’s dominant revenue stream, is is taking a hit as some big clients have paused buys. Musk gave a rambling presentation to Madison Avenue yesterday vowing to make the platform “a force for good.”
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