Twitter Says Resolved Issue That Could Have Exposed User Country Code

Twitter said on Monday it has resolved an issue with one of its complaint forms that could have revealed country code of phone numbers linked to account holders.

The issue, which was fixed on November 16, did not expose full phone numbers or any other personal information of users, the company said.

Twitter said it received a large number of enquiries from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia. Suspicious traffic to a Twitter user forum appears to be part of a government-backed activity coming from China and Saudi Arabia, a Twitter spokesman told Reuters via email on Monday.

The company does not know the reason for the activity, but notified users earlier on Monday out of an abundance of caution, the spokesman said.

"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," the company said.

Twitter declined to give any additional information on the issue.

© Thomson Reuters 2018