Twitter Bug Exposes User Passwords, Immediate Change Is Advised

It’s a huge bummer when login information is stolen but it’s even worse when it’s exposed by those who are supposed to protect said details. This is exactly what happened with Twitter recently, where a bug seems to have caused user passwords to be leaked. So now, the microblogging platform is urging users to change their passwords.

Twitter talked about the issue in a blog post, where the social network’s Chief Technical Officer Parag Agrawal explained exactly what happened. He also urged users to change their passwords, among other tips for keeping their accounts safe.

“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,” the post reads.

“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.”

As Digital Trends notes, the problem has already been fixed and the company is assuring users that it has detected no instances of breach nor has it found any signs that the passwords have been stolen. However, this doesn’t eliminate the chance of this being the case, altogether.

As such, the safest course of action is still to change the passwords of those who might feel like their accounts were affected by the issue. More to the point, users should be changing their passwords on a regular basis anyway so that they can keep their accounts safe. With incidents of hacking being on the rise and cybersecurity becoming a much more complicated issue, users would do well to be extra vigilant when using the internet.