330 Million Twitter Users are Urged to Change Passwords after the Twitter Bug Exposed Them in Plain Text

Twitter urges all of it’s 330 Million users to change the password immediately after a Twitter bug identified in their internal system that exposed the passwords in plain text.

To mask the password twitter uses the hashing function “bcrypt” that replaces the actual password to a random number and stored in the Twitter system. Due to this the Twitter bug that password are were added to their system before hashing process completed.

Now the company said they have resolved the issue removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.

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

— Support (@Support) May 3, 2018

Also, the company confirms according to their investigation there is no indication of breach or misuse by anyone. The Twitter blog post doesn’t say how many users affected, according to Reuters “a person familiar with the company’s response said the number was “substantial” and that they were exposed for “several months.”

After the incident disclosure twitter’s share price dropped by 1 percent, the disclosure comes at the lawmakers urges companies on how the credentials are stored.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is to be applied from 25 May 2018 and it applies to all companies that collect and process data belonging to European Union (EU) citizens.

GDPR introduces a requirement for all organizations to report certain types of data breaches to the relevant governing body and your customers. You must notify the relevant stakeholders if your data breach will result in discrimination, damage to reputation, financial loss or loss of confidentiality of individuals.

“We are very sorry this happened. We recognize and appreciate the trust you place in us, and are committed to earning that trust every day.” reads the company statement.

The company advised user’s Use a strong password and also two enable two-factor authentication.