3d ago

Twitter (X) hit by 2.8 billion profile data leak in alleged insider job

Twitter (X) Hit by 2.8 Billion Profile Data Leak in Alleged Insider Job

Summary

A leak allegedly involving 2.87 billion Twitter (X) user profiles has surfaced on Breach Forums, with claims it was stolen by a disgruntled employee during recent layoffs.

The leak, shared by known forum user "ThinkingOne," includes detailed metadata like bios, follower counts, tweet history, and account activity—but not email addresses.

Despite its scale, X has issued no response. The incident raises major privacy concerns amid silence from the company and speculation over the data's true origin.

18 comments

Maybe they just accidentally sent it to somebody over signal? I hear that happens.
- Signal has removed the "add random person to chat" button. That shouldn't happen anymore.
  
  The Omegle of Signal. Or the "I'm Feeling Lucky" of Signal.
  
  But did they give rid of the "add entire database worth of data to the current message" button?
- Fr, maybe someone magically sucked themselves into a group chat with Elon because that's a thing that happens all the time.
  
  I hate it when that happens!

All press inquiries will be answered with a poop emoji.

The truly surprising thing is that so many people still use Twitter.
It's beyond me how they can still do so in accordance with their personal values.
- network effect

1/3 of all humans on earth use Twitter? Bullshit.
At least half of those accounts have to be bots and alts and whatever spam garbage.
- Correct.
  As of Jan 2025, X (formerly Twitter) had around 335.7 million users, so how is it possible that data from 2.8 billion users has been leaked? One possible explanation is that the dataset includes aggregated or historical data, such as bot accounts that were created and later banned, inactive or deleted accounts that still lingered in historical records, or old data that was merged with newer data, increasing the total number of records.

Further examination of the leak showed that at 3% of those accounts were run by real people. 50% of those accounts had mail.ru email addresses.
/s but I'm guessing my numbers aren't far off.

I won't be surprised if my data is caught up in that even though I deleted my account last year (after not using it really since it was bought out).
I don't trust any of these companies to actually, really, for-real-this-time delete anything, ever.

DOJ to prosecute for release of classified information

Haha, not mine. removed. I've deleted it years ago.

18 comments