This is my first ever HN post, and I actually got distracted/took timeout from studing for a Snowflake cert (what are the odds; first ever story I saw about Snowflake on HN).
So, I was reading the comments and then in my mind I said to myself, this sounds like something connected with a Pegasus type company. The very next line in the comment I was reading was:
"our boots-on-the-ground approach to cybercrime originates from the IDF's 8200 Cybercrime division"!
As others have noted, doxing the SE seems unnecessary...unless, that was part of the threat/proposal to Snowflake. You can imagine companies that had worked with that SE being concerned/need reassuring they're not affected.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if someone had bet against Snowflake stock before this story broke, if the story was hyped up enough or it was bad enough to spook the market.
Snowflake "strongly recommends" using 2FA for the admin account role, but users are free to decide whether to use it or not. Snowflake's website states: "MFA is enabled on a per-user basis; however, at this time, users are not automatically enrolled in MFA. To use MFA, users must enrol themselves." - I assume a future update will change that so they can enable it by default. MFA related questions always appear in lower-level Snowflake certs.
I'd assume (as a consultant) It would be against company policy to use a username/password for client work. Sometimes that's one of the first bad practices we see working with new clients. Perhaps that's why the SE is an ex-employee.