Twitter urges all 330 million users to change passwords NOW

Twitter asks all of its 330 million strong userbase to immediately changer their passwords, after a bug exposed them in plain text.

Comment IconFacebook IconX IconReddit Icon
Gaming Editor
Published
Updated
45-second read time
Voice: Default
0:00 / --:--
Use left and right arrow keys to seek audio.

Twitter has been hit in a big way today, with the social networking giant urging all of its 330 million users to change their passwords immediately after they were exposed in a bug in plain text.

Twitter urges all 330 million users to change passwords NOW | TweakTown.com

The company wasn't hacked at all, with Twitter recommending people change their passwords out of an "abundance of caution". Twitter wants you to change your password on the site itself, and anywhere else that you've used that password, including third-party Twitter apps.

How did it happen? Well, Twitter says that the bug occurred through an issue in the hashing process, where it masks passwords by replacing them with a random string of characters that then get sorted on Twitter's system. An error in this process happened, so the passwords were then saved in plain text to an internal log. Twitter says they found the bug on their own, and removed the passwords and is working on it so it doesn't happen again.

News Source:theverge.com

Gaming Editor

Email IconX IconLinkedIn Icon

Anthony joined TweakTown in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of tech products. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Stay Updated

Follow TweakTown for breaking tech news, reviews, and daily updates.

Add TweakTown as a preferred source on GoogleFind TweakTown on Apple News
Newsletter Subscription