Millions Of Facebook Passwords Stored In Readable Format To Staff

MENLO PARK, CA — Tens of millions of Facebook users had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by thousands of Facebook employees — in some cases going back to 2012, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

Facebook says an ongoing investigation has so far found no indication that employees have abused access to this data.

Pedro Canahuati, vice president of Engineering, Security and Privacy, put out a bulletin Thursday declaring the issue was discovered during “a routine security review” in January.

The Facebook engineering head insisted the glitch remained in internal systems and never traveled outside to the general public using the social media platform. The security issue impacted millions of Facebook users and thousands of Instagram accounts.

“We have fixed these issues, and as a precaution we will be notifying everyone whose passwords we have found were stored in this way,” Canahuati said. “We will continue making improvements as part of our ongoing security efforts at Facebook.”

The social media giant has endured months of grappling with privacy issues, with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg pledging to swing the direction of the Menlo Park-based company toward encryption to alleviate such problems.

Patch reached out to Facebook for a comment.

Click Here: cheap Cowboys jersey