Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years

March 21, 2019
| Report Focus News

Facebook said on Thursday it discovered it had been storing hundreds of millions of its users’ passwords internally in a readable format.

The error was revealed in a blog post that detailed how passwords had been stored in a readable format within its internal data storage systems.

Pedro Canahuati, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, security and privacy, said the passwords were visible to Facebook employees, but claimed there was no evidence that anyone abused or improperly accessed them.

“We estimate that we will notify hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users,” he wrote.

“There is nothing more important to us than protecting people’s information, and we will continue making improvements as part of our ongoing security efforts at Facebook.”

More to follow