Petr Škuta Not even a month ago, we reported that Facebook was storing passwords to its social network and Instagram as plain text without encryption. Now the representatives themselves have confirmed it on the company's blog.
The original situation was revealed on the basis of a security review, and Facebook defended itself by saying that at most tens of thousands of passwords were involved. However, the original blog post has now been updated to admit that there were millions of passwords stored in this way.
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Unfortunately, these unencrypted passwords were accessible in the database to basically all programmers and other software engineers. In reality, the passwords could be read by thousands of company employees who work with code and databases every day. But Facebook emphasizes that there is not a single piece of evidence that these passwords or data have been misused.
The situation around the Instagram social network is starting to get a little more interesting. It is constantly gaining in popularity, and the most requested are short usernames, which are subsequently also part of the URL address. A kind of black market has also developed around Instagram usernames, where certain names have a considerably high price.
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What is even more alarming is that many of the employees had access to the passwords and thus to the entire Instagram account. Of course, Facebook denies any leaks and damage to users even in this case.
According to the statement, it is starting to send out an email notification to all affected users, which encourages them to change the access password to both social networks. Of course, users don't have to wait, if the given email arrives and they can immediately change their password or turn on two-factor authentication.
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Amaya Toman Security incidents are constantly happening around Facebook lately. The news leaked online that the network was collecting a database of email addresses without users' knowledge in order to create a network of contacts.
Facebook has also caused a stir by favoring companies that use advertising on the network and provide some of the user data themselves. On the contrary, they try to combat all competition and put it at a disadvantage.
Source: MacRumors
