It’s always fun memorizing a new password, isn’t it.
Twitter is urging users to change their passwords after a recent glitch left some of them in a state where they could be read. They don’t think anything was taken due to the bug, and they made the necessary efforts to delete the information. But on the internet, you can never be too careful when it comes to stuff like this. They explain the nature of the bug in their blog:
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.
Someone familiar with the company states that the number of users affected was “substantial” and that the information was exposed for “several months”. so it might be best to change those settings, just in case.
Source: Reuters
About Author
