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    Home / News / Technology News / Twitter employee spied on users for Saudi intelligence: Report
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    Twitter employee spied on users for Saudi intelligence: Report

    Twitter employee spied on users for Saudi intelligence: Report

    By Shubham Sharma
    Oct 21, 2018
    05:28 pm

    What's the story

    Saudi Arabia co-opted a Twitter employee to spy on dozens of users from within the company, a New York Times report citing multiple sources has revealed.

    The employee, Ali Alzabarah, joined Twitter in 2013 and was groomed by the Saudi intelligence to peer into accounts of dissidents and others.

    Twitter came to know about the activity in late 2015 and fired him.

    Here's more.

    Motive

    Engineer co-opted to target political opposition

    During his two years at Twitter, Alzabarah had risen through the ranks to hold an engineering position, which provided him access to user account data, including personal information, account activity, phone numbers, and IP addresses.

    The Saudis used this as an opportunity and groomed Alzabarah to spy on dissidents and other targets that either fostered activism or may have been critical to the regime.

    Twitter's action

    No evidence of handing over data

    In late 2015, Western officials informed Twitter of the connection between Alzabarah and the Saudis, prompting the company to launch an investigation.

    The company, as NYT sources claimed, assessed the information Alzabarah might have accessed.

    Though it couldn't find any evidence of handing over data, the engineer was fired the same month. He went back to Saudi Arabia shortly after that.

    Accounts accessed

    Whose accounts were accessed?

    Twitter didn't find any evidence of handing over data, but it did discover that Alzabarah accessed multiple accounts, including those of policy academicians, journalists, privacy and security researchers, and surveillance specialists.

    Many of them were connected to the Tor project, which helps activists maintain privacy and circumvent firewalls and repress government surveillance.

    The company even sent emails alerting the users of the state-sponsored act.

    Do you know?

    Something similar happened at Facebook too

    Though Twitter's case revolves around politics, it is worth noting this isn't the first time an employee has used his position for the wrong reasons. To recall, just a few months back, Facebook fired an engineer who abused his position to stalk women.

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