#facebook password

Facebook has admitted that they have discovered that hundreds of millions of user passwords were stored in a readable format or in plaintext within their internal data storage systems. In a statement, Pedro Canahuati, Facebook VP Engineering, Security and Privacy, said that their login systems should have masked the passwords, and have discovered the issue during their routine security review in January. He said that the passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed those passwords. The social media giant estimates that it has affected hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users. A senior Facebook employee who spoke on condition of anonymity told KrebsOnSecurity that initial investigation estimates that between 200 million and 600 million Facebook users might have had their passwords stored in plaintext and was searchable by more than 20,000 Facebook employees. Some of the discovered archives of plaintext passwords even date back to 2012. Although Facebook says that no passwords were exposed externally and that they didn't find any evidence of abuse to date, the company still recommends changing your passwords on Facebook and Instagram as well as enabling a security key or two-factor authentication (2FA) to keep it secure. Read more in our articles including "Facebook admits storing millions of passwords in plaintext" and "OpenAI unveils GPT-5.6 with Sol, Terra, Luna AI models".