Twitter Reveals Privacy Issues with Firefox Browsers

Downloaded Your Twitter Data Via Firefox? Your Privacy May be At Risk

If you have downloaded your Twitter account data using the Firefox internet browser, then your information is likely to be exposed to privacy risks.  Recently Twitter discovered that the Firefox browser is using its features to store user data for more than usual time. Twitter alerted its users who were using the Firefox browser to access their account with a short notice.

The notice was something like this: Important details for Firefox users, we have lately got to know that Mozilla Firefox browsers are storing cached data in a certain way that can result in private details being unintentionally saved on the browser’s cache.

The above message is a subtle notice and warning for the Firefox users that have accessed their Twitter account using the browser. Now their private details are likely to be in the danger zone. But exactly what has happened is a bit confusing in the notice provided by Twitter. 

Twitter Reveals Data Cache Exploitation Issue with Privacy and Security

Twitter found a problem with the way Firefox browsers are saving cached data. For illustration, if a user is downloading Twitter account data or even transferring media using a direct message and unintentionally left the process open, then the data left by the user could be accessed by threat actors.

Once this incidence happens with a user, then it is possible that the data user left can be retained in Mozilla cache even after logging out from the account. This can stay in the browser cache for about seven days and post that the data will be removed as per Firefox’s cache retention policy.     

The privacy issue is hidden in those 7 days in which your account data is exposed to cyber attackers and can be accessed via tools certainly search through Firebox caches to look for details that were left by the users unintentionally.

If the sensitive information was left open by you on Firefox, then even after logging out, it will stay vulnerable to the potential risks. The risk gets even worst when someone of Twitter users accesses their account on Firefox users on public or shared devices.

Twitter stated that Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Apple Safari browsers don’t have any of these issues. They also told that now Twitter has made some changes to prevent its users’ data to be retained in the Firefox browsers. 

In a blog post, CTO of Firefox, Eric Rescorla, stated; it is complicated to understand, but the majority can be understood easily. Caching is complex and each internet browsers treats the platform a bit differently. The specific way that Twitter had their website created, Safari, Chrome, Edge don’t cache user data, but Firefox will do this. It is a natural way how one browser is behaving towards the Twitter site. We have a standard method to make sure that our browser does not cache users’ data, but Twitter was not utilizing it.

So, according to the Rescorla, they were not planning for Firefox to keep your data retained for 7 days. Still, it was a misunderstanding of the Twitter developers’ team that they didn’t use Firefox’s standard way of avoiding data caching. Other sites work fine on Firefox, so it makes clear that your data was not intentionally cached in the browser, but it was a sort of mistake of the Twitter team.