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Parts of Twitter’s source code were leaked online, possibly for months, according to a new report, presenting a massive risk for Elon Musk’s social network.
The New York Times reported late Sunday that Twitter disclosed the breach in a legal filing Friday, when it sent a copyright infringement notice to software-development platform GitHub in an effort to get the code removed.
The code was taken down right away, the Times reported, but it apparently had been online for several months.
Also read: Elon Musk suggests Twitter worth under $20 billion — or less than half what he paid for it
Aside from its value as intellectual property, Twitter’s source code could expose security vulnerabilities giving hackers the ability to steal user data or take down the entire site, sources told the Times.
Twitter believes the code was posted by a former employee who left the company last year, the Times said. It was unclear if that was before or after Musk bought the company in October and slashed most of the staff.
Musk had previously promised to publicly post some of Twitter’s source code in an effort to crowd-source finding potential flaws, but he had also reportedly been worried about leaks and sabotage by disgruntled current or former workers.
