The email addresses used to register 235 million Twitter accounts have been leaked online by hackers, The Washington Post reported Jan. 4.
The emails could be employed to gain access to Twitter accounts not protected by two-factor authentication, according to the story.
"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 Israeli security firm Hudson Rock, told the newspaper. Mr. Gal had discovered the emails posted on an underground marketplace.
The breach may have come from a vulnerability, which Twitter disclosed in August, that inadvertently allowed site visitors to match email addresses with user accounts. Twitter didn't respond to a request from the Post seeking comment.