Facebook stored millions of passwords in plain text

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Facebook says it has fixed a password issue impacting hundreds of millions of platform users.

The Menlo Park-based company says it found the problem during a routine security review in January.

It discovered user passwords were being stored in a readable format within its internal data storage systems.

"This caught our attention because our login systems are designed to mask passwords using techniques that make them unreadable," said Facebook in a statement.

The social network says "to be clear, these passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook".

Facebook says it has fixed these issues and it will be notifying everyone whose passwords were stored in this way.

Read Facebook's full statement on the password issue.