A mysterious Twitter bug has been linked to suspicious activity from China and Saudi Arabia.
“We have become aware of an issue related to one of our support forms, which is used by account holders to contact Twitter about issues with their account,” explained Twitter, in a statement released Monday.
The bug could be used to discover the country code of people’s phone numbers if they had one associated with their Twitter account, as well as whether or not their account had been locked by Twitter.
SHOCKING SCALE OF RUSSIA’S SINISTER SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN AGAINST US REVEALED
Twitter began working to deal with the bug on Nov. 15 and fixed it the following day. However, the company’s investigation into the mysterious issue has led to China and Saudi Arabia.
“We observed a large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia,” it 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 issue did not expose full phone numbers or users’ other personal data, according to the San Francisco-based firm.
TWITTER'S RELEASE OF 10 MILLION RUSSIAN, IRANIAN INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN TWEETS SHOWS US VULNERABILITY
The hack has prompted speculation that the bug may have been used to target dissidents.
In a press conference Tuesday, Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, cited a report that the IP addresses are unlikely to be hackers working for governments. "As you know, the position of the Chinese government on cyber security is consistent," she said. "We hope that when it comes to this issue, all parties can follow the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit to address this global issue through dialogue and cooperation.
Fox News has reached out to Saudi authorities with a request for comment on the mysterious bug.
Twitter revealed the bug on the same day that two separate reports revealed the bewildering scale of Russia’s social media campaign to sow discord in the U.S.
In October Twitter also released an archive of more than 10 million tweets originating in Russia and Iran, which it says demonstrates efforts to spark friction in America.
Fox News’ Christopher Carbone contributed to this article.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Get a daily look at what’s developing in science and technology throughout the world.