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TWITTER HAS URGED users to change their passwords, which were unintentionally “unmasked” internally by a software bug.
The company said this evening that it recently discovered a bug that stored passwords in an internal log in an unprotected form.
Twitter says there’s no indication that there was a breach or that any of the passwords were misused.
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However, as a precaution, Twitter recommends users consider changing the passwords they use to log onto the social media platform. They should also change that password if they used it for any other services.
The San Francisco company says it masks – or encrypts – passwords by replacing them with a random set of numbers and letters. But the bug caused passwords to be written to an internal log before that masking occurred.
The company says it discovered the bug on its own and has fixed it.
With reporting by AFP.
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@B9xiRspG: The passwords weren’t decrypted. They were stored in a log before being encrypted. If anyone got access to that log though they could use it to potentially gain access to other sites if you use the same email address and password combination all the time. This story highlights the real importance of using different passwords for different websites.
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