Twitter's chief information security officer quits

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San Francisco: As tech companies reel under mounting pressure to prevent their platforms from data breach and fake news, Twitter`s Chief Information Security Officer Michael Coates has decided to quit.

In a tweet on Thursday, Coates who joined Twitter in 2015 announced his departure from the micro-blogging website.

"Twitter has been an amazing ride, but as I mentioned internally a few weeks back, my time is coming to an end. I`m confident to leave the program with an amazing security team," Coates tweeted.

Twitter has been an amazing ride, but as I mentioned internally a few weeks back, my time is coming to an end. I’m confident to leave the program with an amazing security team. What’s next? I’m off to co-found a security startup - hope to share more about what we’re doing soon! — Michael Coates (@_mwc) March 21, 2018

Media reports say that Joseph Camilleri, Twitter's senior manager for information security and risk will replace Coates for an interim period.

Coates` departure comes soon after reports surfaced that Facebook`s Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos is planning to leave the company by August.

Meanwhile, Michael Zalewski, Director of Information Security Engineering at Google, has also announced his departure from that company after 11 years.

Facebook is facing the heat after Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission.

Cambridge Analytica (CA) had created psychological profiles on 50 million Facebook users via a personality prediction app, created by a researcher named Aleksandr Kogan.

Earlier, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, through a lengthy Facebook post, addressed the privacy scandal. He wrote that the company made "mistakes" and outlined how it has changed its policies to make sure that user data is protected.

With Agency Inputs