Twitter urges users to change passwords after finding glitch in company's system

Twitter has advised its more than 300 million users to change their passwords after identifying a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log.
 
In a statement, Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal said the company had found “no indication of breach or misuse” of the passwords, but urged users to change them “out of an abundance of caution”.
 
Agrawal explained that user passwords were usually masked in Twitter’s system through an industry-standard ‘hashing’ process, resulting in each one being replaced with random numbers and letters.

However, an error had caused the passwords to be written to an internal log before the process was complete, meaning they were visible in plaintext and therefore readable to those with access to the system.

Agrawal urged users to consider changing their passwords on all services they had used them for, and shared some tips for firming up the security of their accounts.

This advice included using a strong password that isn’t reused on other websites, enabling two-factor authentication for logging in, and using a password manager.

Digital passwords are firmly embedded in our everyday lives, but ensuring they're strong and secure isn't necessarily as easy as it seems.

"A lot of people use silly, simple passwords and they use them across multiple sites," Long told hosts Ben Fordham and Georgie Gardner.

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"If you use the word 'password' as your password, or '123456' - it's genuinely the most popular password on the internet, because people want it easy to remember - you've got to avoid doing those things."

While password managers can be a helpful tool, Long acknowledges they can also complicate the process.

"For the average Joe, the best advice I can give is don't use the same password for your email, or your bank, or your social networks, anywhere else," he explains.

Of course, passwords can be tricky to remember at the best of times - let alone when you have eight of them that are all equally 'secure'.

Long says a simple trick to keep across them is making each password relate in some way to the service it's being used for, by incorporating words related to it.

"I choose a long, strong password. So, you find three words, put them together add in some capital [letter]s and some numbers," he says.

Oh, and don't write them down on a piece of paper, whatever you do.