With Facebook being the colossal social networking website that it is, there is a demand for increased protection of people’s privacy. This is important since it is the mutual trust between the users and the company that keeps the network prosperous. There should be full transparency as to whether a user’s password has been exposed. It is rather questionable that Facebook employees can easily gain access to a user’s password and in conjunction with the user’s account. However, even though the passwords may have been exposed to the employees, it does not mean that any disservice was brought upon the user’s account.
Perhaps in order to not take the full brunt of the accusations, Facebook said that the passwords were stored in a “readable format” within its servers. This is different from admitting that the passwords were blatantly released in a format anyone can get a hold of and easily understand. Those who were affected were said to be notified so that they could change their passwords. The downplaying of this incident is without a doubt just a strategy to stay out of scrutiny as “some” makes it sound as if it was an insignificant number of users affected. Anyone in the modern era should know that “some” in this context means millions of unsuspecting users. Facebook’s Pedro Canahuati, vice president of engineering for security and privacy, later revealed, with no surprise, that hundreds of millions of users would be notified. It is almost certain that no one would be comfortable with the employees having access to their accounts even though there was never a report that the employees had abused their power, as stated by Brian Krebbs.
Despite the claims that no Facebook employee took advantage of the dire situation, sources say that the employees had built applications that would turn encrypted password data into a form that was able to be read on the servers. Now that raises cause for concern due to the fact that this is readily available to approximately 20,000 Facebook employees. Scott Renfro, a Facebook engineer claims that even though all those user’s information were accessible, he says that there would be nothing to worry about as no actual risk would come of this. Apparently, this breach of security issue isn’t their first meet up with scandals as they’ve had to deal with terrorists recording their atrocities via Facebook live and so on.
Instinctively, you would be very concerned if there was a breach of security and whether Facebook notified you regarding the issue. The smart thing to do would be to change the password promptly or even take steps in deleting certain information from your Facebook account. People tend to put their entire lives on the internet as it is a way of connecting with others across the globe. There is, of course, limits as to how much you share with people in this modern society. Technology can be said to be a gift and a curse. A gift in the sense that you can use social networks such as Facebook to meet new people as well as keep in touch with old friends. Some people are more comfortable talking with strangers because they get to express themselves without personal criticism. On the other hand, it is also a curse because those exact social networks can always malfunction or be hacked. The people who have all their information on the internet need to be more careful as technology is not perfect which means your passwords or private information can easily be exposed.
There is always the option of limiting the amount you share and there is the option of deleting your account. As anticipated, you would be quite concerned as to how a networking behemoth such as Facebook managed to expose hundreds of millions of passwords when they are supposed to have tight-knit security. This incident without a doubt has made current and future users lose trust and confidence in the website.
