In a statement in January, Facebook said they and their employees had access to users passwords. These passwords were stored in a readable format, meaning basically, in plain text. This would make our passwords searchable by Facebook employees, if they chose to do so. To counteract this, Facebook says they’ve fixed the issue and as a precaution will notify everyone whose passwords were stored in that way.

The exact numbers were not reported by Facebook themselves. Rather by an anonymous source who is a senior Facebook employee familiar with the investigation. This source told Krebsonsecurity that this investigation so far has unearthed 200 and 600 million Facebook users may have had their passwords in plain text. This would’ve made them easily searchable by over 20,000 employees.

The source also mentions that Facebook is trying to determine how long these passwords were exposed for. Some findings have shown archives of plain text dating back to 2012.

Scandal after scandal, there’s one thing we’ve not heard from Facebook as of yet. How about a simple I’m sorry?

This data, if in the wrong hands could have had severe consequences for many people across the world. 600 million users is a large portion of their user base. While some might’ve been inactive, or just forgot Facebook even existed, data being compromised is never a good thing. Think about it rationally, how many apps or sites do you use, that sign in with Facebook? The potential to cause harm is huge. Apps that you have to pay for, or sites which have your credit card information.

Hence, this all would’ve been exposed. To be careful, we suggest changing your password. Try to using a different password for all your socials. Especially Facebook and Instagram. You would’ve been notified if your password was compromised,