Twitter’s chief of information security steps down

Twitter’s chief information security officer announced her resignation Thursday, leaving one of the company’s most critical roles as scrutiny is mounting over Twitter’s future and the erratic decisions of its new owner, Elon. Musk.

In a tweet, Lea Kissner, former CISO, said she was looking forward to finding out her next steps.

“I have made the difficult decision to leave Twitter,” Kissner tweeted. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m very proud of the privacy, security and IT teams and the work we’ve done.”

Kissner did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did he publicly offer his reasons for leaving Twitter.

Kissner’s departure reportedly coincided with the resignations of several other Twitter leaders Wednesday night over fears over the company’s legal exposure before the Federal Trade Commission, according to an internal Slack message seen by CNN 🇧🇷

Independent journalist Casey Newton and The Verge first reported on the layoffs.

In the Slack message, a Twitter employee wrote that Musk’s only priority is to “recover the losses he is incurring as a result of failing to fulfill his obligation to buy Twitter.”

The employee’s post also alleged that Musk’s focus on monetizing the platform could harm vulnerable users, including human rights activists and political dissidents.

It could even put Twitter’s own employees at legal risk, the message suggested, after the official claimed that Musk was not concerned about Twitter’s potential liability to the FTC.

The official claimed to have overheard Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney and, according to the message, Twitter’s new chief legal officer, saying “Elon puts rockets in space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.”

Spiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, an FTC spokesperson said he is “following recent developments on Twitter with deep concern.”

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” the spokesperson said. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance and we are prepared to use them.”

Twitter has twice settled with that agency over user privacy violations and faces allegations from whistleblowers from its former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, that the company under former CEO Parag Agrawal violated its Twitter obligations. FTC for the third time. If substantiated, Zatko’s allegations could result in billions of dollars in fines and personal liability for Agrawal.

The message outlined plans on Twitter to devolve FTC compliance responsibilities to individual workers who remain with the company.

“This will place an enormous amount of personal, professional and legal risk for engineers,” the message warned, according to The Verge. “I anticipate that all of you will be pressured by management to make changes that are likely to lead to major incidents.”