Facebook admits storing passwords in plain text
San Francisco, Mar 21: Facebook on Thursday admitted that millions of passwords were stored in plain text on its internal servers, a security slip that left them readable by the social networking giant's employees.
"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," vice president of engineering, security, and privacy Pedro Canahuati said in a blog post.
The blunder was uncovered during a routine security review early this year, according to Canahuati.
He said that the Silicon Valley company expected to notify hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users; tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users whose passwords may have been vulnerable to prying eyes.
The basic security shortcoming was revealed on the heels of a series of controversies centered on whether Facebook properly safeguards the privacy and data of its users.
The basic data defense mistake would also appear contrary to the "Hacker Way" mantra that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has espoused at the social network.
"One Hacker Way" is the main address of Facebook's vast campus in the California city of Menlo Park.
Brian Krebs of security news website KrebsOnSecurity.com cited an unnamed Facebook source as saying the internal investigation had so far indicated that as many as 600 million users of the social network had account passwords stored in plain text files searchable by more than 20,000 employees.
The exact number has yet to be determined, but archives with unencrypted user passwords were found dating back to the year 2012, according to Krebs.
"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.
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Suspected Maoists in Wayanad call for boycott of LS polls
Wayanad (Kerala) (PTI): A four-member group of suspected armed Maoists reached an area under Thalappuzha police station in this hill district on Wednesday morning, urging the people there to boycott the April 26 Lok Sabha polls.
A police officer said a group of police personnel has gone to Kambamala after learning about the Maoist presence in the area. However, he did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, locals said the Maoists reached the area around 6.15 am and raised slogans. The ultras also urged the people to boycott voting, they said.
The Maoists were in their uniforms and were carrying guns. They spent around 20 minutes in the area, the locals added.
A purported video of the Maoists interacting with the locals surfaced later.
It also showed that there were people, mainly workers, at the junction at the time of their arrival.
