What if I say you all that the social media giant Facebook buys leaked passwords from the black market. Sounds quite a frightful right, but do you all know why the social media giant Facebook buying leaked passwords from the black market ? Might be your answer would be “No”.

Facebook Buys Leaked Passwords From The Black Market

Security is now the key point of the success of an online service. However, the safety of users is still dependent on many services with the simple use of a password.

Alex Stamos, who works in the security segment of social network Facebook, revealed in a Web summit that the company buys often on the black market, leaked password lists simply to maintain the security of the service. But how?

Yesterday was the last day of WebSummit, the largest technology event where Facebook CSO Alex Stamos said that over 1.3 Billion people use Facebook every day, and keeping them secure is building attack-proof software to keep out hackers, but keeping them safe is actually a huge task. Also said about the technology, about the election of Donald Trump and about the safety of services.

In a speech held yesterday, Facebook CSO Alex Stamos, who joined the Facebook security team in 2015, revealed that it is common to buy passwords from the black market, as the reuse of password is something that happens very often and that clearly endangers users and the service itself. In addition, Alex Stamos recalls that the authentication systems that are based on a password were created in 1970’s, they are just misfits for the services and current challenges.

The security chief said “The reuse of passwords is the No. 1 cause of harm on the internet,” as the username and password system that was initially introduced in the 1970’s will not help us now in 2016.

Stamos also explained that after acquiring these lists of passwords from the black market, the same are compared with those in the encrypted customer record databases. The passwords comparison is a complex and difficult task, said Alex Stamos. The results help to recommend users to set a better password to access the service.

In this process, the largest social network has other security mechanisms to operate, like two-factor authentication and to request the user to identify friends photographs.