It’s time again to change your password. Twitter wasn’t hacked, but it still really wants you to change your password.
On May 3, Twitter announced that the passwords of every account—all 336 million of them—had been exposed in an internal log. There’s no indication that anyone’s passwords have been stolen or misused, but in the interest of safety, Twitter is recommending everyone change their passwords.
Normally, Twitter protects passwords through a process called hashing, in which it replaces the actual characters of a password with random letters and numbers. The bug allowed passwords to be kept in an “internal log” without hashing so they were stored in their readable text format.
Twitter’s password mishap was announced on the corporate holiday known as World Password Day, created by Intel security researchers and celebrated on the first Thursday in May to promote good password and cyber security hygiene.
Change your Twitter password
Twitter is making it easy to get started. The company is showing users a notification that links directly to its password reset page. You can also get there by going to Settings and Privacy -> Change Password on Twitter’s website, or Settings and Privacy -> Account -> Change Password on the mobile app. You will need to enter your existing password, then a new password twice.
Change Your Other Password Too!
If you used the same password on any other services like Facebook or your bank account, you should change those passwords immediately as well. Update them even if you use slight variations that could be easily figured out, such as “abcmylove” or “iloveabc”.
Make sure each new password is also unique or you will have to go through this process again the next time there is a password issue at one of the services you use. (There will always be a next time.)
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