Information Systems: Facebook's Password Security Vulnerability Report

This report examines the recent revelation by Facebook regarding the insecure storage of millions of user passwords, making them vulnerable to external attacks. The issue, confirmed following a report by cyber security writer Brian Krebs, involves passwords stored in simplified text formats, posin...Read More

Running Head: MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Managing Information Systems
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1MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Article: Facebook Did Not Securely Store Passwords. Here’s What You Need
to Know.
Recently, in a public release, Facebook authority has revealed that the account passwords
of millions of users around the world have been stored in an insecure manner making them
vulnerable to external attacks and misuse by hackers (Guan et al., 2019). Following a report by
Brian Krebs, a cyber security writer regarding the password vulnerability in Facebook, the
Facebook authority has come out and approved the reports saying that the passwords stored in
simplified text formats and as a result, external attackers can easily steal and misuse these
passwords. Moreover, this issue is not for one or two users, this issue is for millions of users
around the world making the site extremely unsafe for all the users.
However, the Facebook authority also admitted that there has been no evidence of abuses
and they will start alerting the users regarding the password vulnerability of their accounts.
While such step will not require resetting of password, it will definitely alert users regarding
entry of personal and confidential information in Facebook and use of weak passwords that can
be easily decoded.
Considering the size of the company, this security failure is a huge embarrassment for the
largest social media platform available worldwide. Facebook’s reputation has been hampered
considerably through several scandals in the past few years and this recent incident of password
vulnerability only aggravates that problem (Nytimes.com, 2019). In addition, some attacks have
already been done on the network used by Facebook that still awaits appropriate and necessary
action from the authority.

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References
Guan, C., Sun, K., Lei, L., Wang, P., Wang, Y., & Chen, W. (2019). DangerNeighbor attack:
Information leakage via postMessage mechanism in HTML5. Computers & Security, 80,
291-305.
Nytimes.com. (2019). Facebook Did Not Securely Store Passwords. Here’s What You Need to
Know.. [online] Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/technology/personaltech/facebook-
passwords.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FComputer%20Security
%20(Cybersecurity)&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&mod
ule=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection [Accessed 26
Mar. 2019].