Instagram security blunder: Millions of passwords were stored in plain text on servers

Millions of Instagram users were affected due to passwords stored in plain text on Facebook servers, Facebook mitted its blog post. Given popularity of Instagram around world, Facebook security blunder was eugh to compromise security of millions of Instagram accounts.

Last month, Facebook said that company h invertently stored passwords in plain text, making it possible for its thousands of employees to search m. Facebook said passwords were stored on internal company servers where y were out of reach of outsiders.

RE | Facebook left hundreds of millions of user passwords reable by employees for years

Facebook said in its blog post that it estimates that “millions” of Instagram users were affected by lapse. Earlier, social networking giant h reported that “tens of thousands” Instagram users were affected.

“Since this (blog) post was published, we discovered ditional logs of Instagram passwords being stored in a reable format. We w estimate that this issue impacted millions of Instagram users,” Facebook said.

“We will be tifying se users as we did ors. Our investigation has determined that se stored passwords were t internally abused or improperly accessed,” Facebook ded.

Apart from Instagram, “hundreds of millions” of Facebook Lite users and millions of Facebook users were affected by lapse. Facebook Lite is designed for people with older phones or slow internet connections.

RE | Beware! Hackers trying to steal Instagram passwords using new ‘Nasty List’ phishing scam

Of late, hackers are targetting Instagram users with different phishing schemes and attacks. Over last few weeks, multiple phishing were reported. Hackers were recently caught stealing Instagram passwords using a new ‘Nasty List’ phishing attack.

Tips to safeguard Instagram accounts

Be wary of URLs

Be careful about links you open on your web browser. If you find anything suspicious, don't . backbone of se phishing scams is a little bit of trickery to make users fall for such fraudulent schemes and malicious ps impersonating real ones. Always use official Instagram app on your phone.

Two-factor auntication

Enable two-factor auntication. All you need to do is go to Settings > Privacy and security > Security > Two-factor auntication. Enable it by choosing eir text mess (OTP) or auntication app method.

(With ncy inputs)