Twitter Is The Dragon’s New Hunting Ground? Company Shares Dip Amid Suspicious Traffic From China, Saudi Arabia

The shares of social media site Twitter fell by almost 7 per cent following a statement from the company that said it was investigating unusual traffic that could possibly be from state-sponsored hackers of China and Saudi Arabia, reports NDTV.

Twitter said that while it was investigating a security bug that exposed data, including users' phone country codes and details on locked accounts, it came across suspicious traffic at a customer support forum. A security firm said hackers used the platform to try and steal user data.

It observed large traffic to the customer support site coming from individual internet IP addresses in China and Saudi Arabia.

"While we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors. We continue to err on the side of full transparency in this area and have updated law enforcement on our findings," stated the company’s blog.

A Twitter spokesperson refused to elaborate as the company posted their most significant drop in more than two months.

An analyst from Wedbush, a financial services and investment firm analyst, Michael Pachter, concluded that the news of a breach could impair trust and consequently growth and user engagement.

Security software maker Trend Micro Inc stated in a blog that on Monday, the attackers sent out two tweets in October to previously infected machines that ordered them to send usernames, screen images, etc.