On Wednesday, it was reported that Twitter had a piece of their internal source code leaked on the social coding platform GitHub. The affected source code was part of their ad metrics system and reportedly contained credentials to their internal administrative tools.
Twitter released a statement Thursday saying they have taken swift action to investigate the incident and are working to contain the leak. In the statement they said “We are committing to doing all we can to prevent this from happening in the future.”
Twitter has also reached out to GitHub to get to the bottom of who is responsible for the leak. While the identity of the leaker has not yet been determined, Twitter has taken steps to secure their networks and systems to protect other pieces of code from being leaked in the future.
At the moment, the source code leak only affects the ad metrics system, however, there is the potential for hackers to use the credentials included in the ransacked source code to gain access to other parts of Twitter’s back-end.
Twitter has yet to confirm if they have pinpointed the source of the leak, but they are continuing to investigate the situation.
Meanwhile, the leak has also been a source of concern for users of Twitter’s platform. Hackers can use the leaked credentials to try to access user data including email addresses, phone numbers and other personal information. Fortunately, it looks like the requisite information was not included in the leaked source code.
The source code leak is a reminder of the importance of security for companies in the tech industry. It starts with having a secure infrastructure to begin with and appropriate monitoring of networks and systems to detect and stop potential leaks.
It looks like Twitter is doing their best to get to the bottom of this leak. Hopefully, in the future, other companies can learn from Twitter’s incident and prevent similar leaks from happening to them.