Security researchers are informing users that more than 200 million Twitter accounts were hacked, and the email addresses associated are being listed on underground hacker forums.

This brings major concerns due to the intent of email addresses being posted on these forums being so hackers can collect various information to get into more valuable accounts.

"Bad actors have won the jackpot," said Rafi Mendelsohn, a spokesman for Cyabra, a social media analysis firm focused on identifying disinformation and inauthentic online behavior, told CNN on Thursday.

"Previously private data such as emails, handles, and creation date can be leveraged to build smarter and more sophisticated hacking, phishing and disinformation campaigns," Mendelsohn added.

Security experts also told the Washington Post on Wednesday that this poses an extortion threat to people who used Twitter to criticize governments or influential individuals.

"This database is going to be used by hackers, political hacktivists and of course governments to harm our privacy even further," Alon Gal, co-founder of the Israeli security company Hudson Rock, who spotted the posting on a popular underground marketplace told the Post.

It is believed the records were hacked into in late 2021 through a glitch in Twitter's privacy system from a code update about seven months before.

Twitter informed users in August 2022 that it realized the glitch in January 2022.

To recover from being hacked, The Federal Trade Commission of consumer advice recommends updating your security software, changing your passwords, and setting up multi-factor authentication.

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