Facebook Staff May Have Had Access to Your Password

Hundreds of millions of users' Facebook, Facebook Lite, and Instagram passwords were accessible by Facebook staff members.

CNN reports that Facebook announced on Thursday, March 21, that they had not properly concealed hundreds of millions of users' passwords to their various platforms. The exposed passwords were stored as plain text in an internal database that could be accessed by staff members.

According to CNN, the exposed passwords were discovered during a security review in January. It is unclear how long the passwords were exposed. The announcement about the breach was made shortly after Krebs on Security reported it.

The passwords affected were mainly for systems associated with Facebook Lite, according to CNN. Hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of regular Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users were impacted.

Facebook said that the passwords were not accessible to anyone outside of the company. CNN reports that hashing or encrypting passwords is a fundamental of cybersecurity.

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