8 in 10 Twitter accounts fake, claims top security expert as Musk laughs

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Thursday went after Parag Agrawal-led platform once again, after a top cybersecurity expert claimed that as high as eight in 10 Twitter accounts are fake.

Dan Woods, Global Head of Intelligence at cybersecurity company F5, who spent more than 20 years with the US federal law enforcement and intelligence organisations, told The Australian that more than 80 per cent of Twitter accounts are probably bots — a massive claim as Twitter says only 5 per cent of its users are bots/spams.

“Sure sounds higher than 5 per cent,” tweeted Musk, along with tagging the news article.

“On a $/bot basis, this deal is awesome,” he chuckled.

Musk has terminated the $44 billion Twitter takeover deal, and the matter is now in a US court, over the presence of bots on the platform, and seeks answers from Agrawal via an open debate.

According to Woods, a former CIA and FBI cybersecurity specialist, both Musk and Twitter have underestimated the bot problem on the micro-blogging platform.

Musk is now trying to buy more time from the court to start the Twitter trial, set for October 17, citing the testimony by whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko.

Zatko is set to testify at US Congress on September 13 about allegations he leveled against the Agrawal-led micro-blogging platform.

The former Twitter security head has alleged that Twitter misled regulators about its security practices and actual number of bot accounts.

Zatko has also received a subpoena from Musk’s legal team to appear for a deposition on September 9 in the ongoing lawsuit between Twitter and Musk.

Musk has said that the testimony of Twitter whistleblower justifies his termination of the $44 billion deal to buy the micro-blogging platform.

The Tesla CEO has to prove to the court that Twitter violated some aspect of the merger agreement, else he will have to shell out a $1 billion fine for cancelling the deal.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

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