Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko has been appointed the chief information officer at the US Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA).

A prominent and well-respected hacker, Zatko has previously worked at Google, Twitter, Stripe, the Biden Administration, and DARPA.

"I’m back at DARPA, but this time part of the leadership team as DARPA’s chief information officer (CIO)," Zatko said on Twitter/X.

"We all pulled off real magic the first time I was at DARPA (~2010-2014). In addition to helping stand up I2O as the agency 'Cyber' office, a lot of the magic created through things like Cyber Fast Track (CFT) were due to the direct participation of this community."

Zatko most recently made headlines for his efforts to blow the whistle on the security practices of Twitter. He was fired in January 2022 by newly-appointed Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, along with the company's CIO.

At the time, Zatko claimed that Twitter had violated a security agreement with the FTC and ran out-of-date and vulnerable software, along with a litany of complaints about its practices.

Some employees agreed with him, while others criticized his own practices and lack of effort to fix the issues.

The claims and counter-claims came in the middle of Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, and just as he tried to pull out of the $44 billion deal. Musk tried to use Zatko's claims as a reason to cancel the contract, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Twitter reached a confidential $7 million settlement with Zatko in June that year, which prohibits him from speaking publicly about his time at Twitter or disparaging the company.

After leaving Twitter, Zatko took a job at security consulting firm Rapid7.