News
Facebook has exposed the login details of hundreds of millions of its customers to over 20,000 employees
US social media giant, Facebook, has compromised the security of hundreds of millions of its users’ data, in another embarrassing gaff for the company.
Over 600 million users’ passwords and login details were stored in plain text format, meaning that they were discoverable by 20,000 employees of the social media giant, according to security analyst Brian Krebs.
“These passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them,” a Facebook spokesperson told Reuters.
The original security breach is believed to date back to as early as 2012.
European leaders have started to lose patience with the US social media giant in recent months, as a clamour of high-profile data breaches have seen Facebook forced onto the defensive in Europe.
Last month, German telecoms regulator, the Budeskartellamt, said that Facebook must modify its data gathering processes in Europe.
Following news of the data breach, Germany’s justice minister, Katarina Barley, told journalists from Reuters that Facebook needed to be more proactive in the way that it protects its customers’ data.
“My experience is: Facebook only takes responsibility when it’s forced to do so,” she said.
Also in the news:
UK MPs call for tougher regulation for Facebook
Could data security fears be blocking a $52bn opportunity for telcos?
