However, encouraging users to connect phone numbers to their accounts and show the status raises the problem of data security. Twitter published the specifics of an incident on August 5th that enabled an attacker to identify 5.4 million user names connected with certain phone numbers and email addresses. According to the firm, the privacy weakness was introduced in a June 2021 update, wasn’t disclosed to Twitter until January, and Twitter didn’t realize the information had been taken until July when media rumors spread that someone was attempting to sell the database.
