It was a shocking surprise to many when the news hit the press that the source code of Twitter had been leaked onto the code repository service, GitHub, shortly after Tesla founder Elon Musk’s decision to lay off some employees.
The release of the source code came as Musk was about to initiate a massive layoff of 9 percent of his employees — a decision that was as surprising as it was controversial. On the same day, a complete version of Twitter’s source code was posted to GitHub, a platform which allows developers to share, store, and manage code.
The posting of the code was accompanied by a message that read: “This code is totally dead but makes for a great learning exercise … Share your understanding and findings with us to help us learn and protect our Twitter family.”
The leak has been traced to an ex-employee of Twitter, and it has been assumed that this individual may have been one of those laid off by Musk. It appears that the offending employee decided to release the code in an act of protest or revenge, or in an attempt to teach a lesson.
Twitter has confirmed the leak, but they have not specified exactly how or why the source code was released. However, they did release a statement assuring users of their security and safeguarding measures, and they have been quick to reassure users that their systems have not been compromised and their data is safe.
Despite the breach, it doesn’t appear that any damage has been done, however, it teaches us a valuable lesson about the importance of proper security measures for all types of businesses, no matter their size. Doing so will help to mitigate any potential fallout from such breaches in the future.
