Twitter says it has discovered a worrying bug, which stored “unmasked” user passwords on its internal servers.
The social network says the bug has been fixed with no indications of a breach, but says users should consider changing their passwords.
We recently found a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log. We fixed the bug and have no indication of a breach or misuse by anyone. As a precaution, consider changing your password on all services where you’ve used this password. https://t.co/RyEDvQOTaZ
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 3, 2018
The company says the advice is simply precautionary, given there’s no evidence of misuse by anyone inside or outside the firm.
In a blog post, the company explained what had gone wrong and what it intends to do to avoid a repeat.
It writes: “We mask passwords through a process called hashing using a function known as bcrypt, which replaces the actual password with a random set of numbers and letters that are stored in Twitter’s system. This allows our systems to validate your account credentials without revealing your password. This is an industry standard.
“Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process. We found this error ourselves, removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.”
If you do change your password it’s probably advisable to do so for other services where you’ve used the it.
Will this privacy error take some of the heat off Facebook? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
