Facebook Says Stored Hundreds Of Millions Of Passwords In Readable Format - Statement

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd March, 2019) Facebook said in a press release on Thursday it had been storing passwords of hundreds of millions of users in readable format, making them accessible to the company's employees, who had internal access to the system.�

"As part of a routine security review in January, we found that some user passwords were being stored in a readable format within our internal data storage systems ... To be clear, these passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them," the press release read.

Facebook said the issue had already been fixed, adding that users' passwords are usually protected with encryption.

"As a precaution we will be notifying everyone whose passwords we have found were stored in this way," the press release said.

Facebook estimates it will notify "hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users."�