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Data from 200 million Twitter users is leaked. Here is how to determine if you are impacted

This week, reports surfaced that Twitter had suffered a data leak involving the personal information of over 200 million users, including email addresses, phone numbers, and names. The leak was the result of a private exploit of a flaw in the application programming interface (API) that has since been patched. Users who have had their anonymity compromised run the danger of having their accounts taken over by hackers (both on Twitter and other sites linked to the data).

You may act now without waiting for the other shoe to fall. You may take charge of your security by checking the website Have I Been Pwned to see whether you were a victim so that you can take measures to mitigate any potential harm.

Visit the site and input your contact information to get a full rundown of the big data breaches in which your information has been compromised. (However, HIBP won’t be able to alert you to a breach if it hasn’t been publicly disclosed.) If you’ve been involved in this Twitter mess, your name will be there.

According to the site’s creator and security researcher Troy Hunt, 98% of the email addresses in the data dump were already in the Have I Been Pwned database, therefore it’s a good idea to join up for the site’s email notification service right now. If your email address becomes up in a new database leak, you will be notified immediately. It’s also a good time to take steps to increase your online safety, such implementing two-factor authentication and using a different email address or login for each service you use.

Given the changes at Twitter since its new ownership took over, bolstering your account’s security may be a good idea. Following Musk’s acquisition, several positions were eliminated, leaving a small team in charge of site administration and no communications department to inform customers of service disruptions. This social media site is less reliable than it once was, and you’re on your own if you want to stay.