Security Newsletter

25 March 2019

Facebook Mistakenly Stored Millions of Users' Passwords in Plaintext

Facebook is again at the center of a new privacy controversy after revealing today that its platform mistakenly kept a copy of passwords for "hundreds of millions" users in plaintext. What's more? Not just Facebook, Instagram users are also affected by the latest security incident. So, if you are one of the affected users, your Facebook or Instagram password was readable to some of the Facebook engineers who have internal access to the servers and the database.

However, Facebook is not alone that exposed hundreds of millions of its users' passwords in plain text. Twitter last year also addressed a similar security incident that unintentionally exposed passwords for its 330 million users in readable text on its internal computer system.

Facebook has now fixed this issue and recommended users to change their Facebook and Instagram passwords immediately.

 

Why Phone Numbers Stink As Identity Proof

Phone numbers stink for security and authentication. They stink because most of us have so much invested in these digits that they’ve become de facto identities. At the same time, when you lose control over a phone number — maybe it’s hijacked by fraudsters, you got separated or divorced, or you were way late on your phone bill payments — whoever inherits that number can then be you in a lot of places online.

How exactly did we get to the point where a single, semi-public and occasionally transient data point like a phone number can unlock access to such a large part of our online experience? KrebsOnSecurity spoke about this at length with Allison Nixon, director of security research at New York City-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint.

 

More #News

 

#Patch Time!

 

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Kindred Group in brief

Kindred is one of the largest online gambling companies in the world with over 24 million customers across 100 markets. We offer pre-game and live Sports betting, Poker, Casino and Games through 11 brands across our markets. We are committed to offer our customers the best deal and user experience possible, while ensuring a safe and fair gambling environment. Kindred is a pioneer in the online gambling industry and as an innovation driven company that builds on trust.