A colossal 400GB trove containing knowledge from 2.873 billion X (previously Twitter) customers has surfaced on hacker boards.
The breach, allegedly dated January 2025, is now being deemed one of many largest knowledge leaks in social media historical past.
Breach Origin and Allegations
The leak first got here to gentle on March 28, 2025, when a knowledge leak discussion board person, “ThinkingOne,” revealed detailed details about the breach.
In keeping with their claims, the breach occurred throughout a turbulent interval of layoffs at X, allegedly perpetrated by a disgruntled worker.
ThinkingOne disclosed that its makes an attempt to inform X and its person base had been largely ignored, prompting them to disclose info on-line.
The hacker merged the leaked knowledge with data from a previous 2023 Twitter breach involving 200 million customers, which X had dismissed on the time as “publicly obtainable info.”
ThinkingOne said, “Solely data with display names current in each datasets are included, forming a complete of 201,186,753 entries.”
The Dataset: From Fundamental to Detailed Consumer Data
The dataset from the 2023 breach contained fundamental person knowledge, together with names, display names, and follower metrics.
Nevertheless, the 2025 dataset provides a a lot deeper layer of element. New fields embody person IDs, location, time zone, language preferences, buddy and follower counts, statuses, and detailed metrics on person exercise.
As an illustration, the account “TrumpOnline,” which was a part of the 2023 leak, now consists of expanded metadata comparable to:
- ID: 41610628
- Time Zone: -18000
- Language: en
- Follower Depend: 1,002
- Final Standing Created At: 2011-09-06
This elevated granularity raises vital issues for privateness and safety, as such knowledge might be exploited for profiling, phishing, and focused cyberattacks.
Proof of Breach
Cyber Press, a cybersecurity investigative workforce, uncovered accompanying information linked to the breach.
Their evaluation revealed 165 separate information, together with CSV datasets dated January 24, 2025, containing a whole bunch of megabytes of structured knowledge.
Examples embody:
- twitter_users_003.csv.xz: 372.6 MB
- twitter_users_010.csv.xz: 376.0 MB
- twitter_users_014.csv.xz: 361.2 MB
ThinkingOne stands by the authenticity of the leaked knowledge and claims to have totally analyzed it, although the precise technique of extraction stays unclear.
If verified, this breach would overshadow most earlier social media incidents, doubtlessly rating because the second-largest knowledge breach ever, trailing solely the 2021 Nationwide Public Knowledge breach of three.1 billion data.
Whereas X boasts 600 million Month-to-month Energetic Customers (MAUs), ThinkingOne asserts the platform’s whole registered accounts far exceed this determine, making the two.8 billion report rely believable.
The web response has been swift and anxious, with customers debating the severity of the incident and its implications. One particular person remarked, “Historical past has been made if that is actual.”
X has but to challenge an official assertion concerning the breach, leaving thousands and thousands of customers in unsure.
This alarming incident highlights essential vulnerabilities in social media platforms, underscoring the pressing want for enhanced safety measures and transparency.
As investigations unfold, the breach might function a sobering reminder of the significance of safeguarding person knowledge in an more and more interconnected digital world.
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