14 DAY TRIAL // A wave of emails containing people's Friendster usernames and passwords in plain text, have sparked fears that the database of the former social networking website has been hacked.
The strange emails which bear Friendster's logo, but do not originate from the website's email servers, have caused quite a stir on Twitter and the blogosphere.
They contain the recipient's correct Friendster email address and password, and some users even reported receiving the email several times.
It's not entirely sure who or why sent these emails and how they obtained people's Friendster plain text passwords.
There are a couple of theories being discussed. One is that the site's database was hacked and spammers made away with people's login details.
However, this raises another question. Why were the passwords in plain text? It suggests that either Friendster stored passwords in this form, which is a hugely insecure practice, or that they used a weak hashing algorithm that was easily crackable.
The other theory, although a bit more unlikely, is that the company sold the information to a third party company which is now emailing people.
However, it's not sure what the purpose of the emails is. They only read "Here is your account information for Friendster" and look more like the kind of emails one gets after signing up.
The company has been notified of the incident and started an investigation into the matter. "We take reports like this seriously and we shall make the proper investigation on your concern. Unfortunately, we don’t have a specific time frame on when the investigation will be completed," it replied, according to a user who reported the issue.
Friendster was once a large social network with over 115 million registered users, and 61 million unique monthly visitors. Last month, following a long decline in popularity, the company decided to reposition the website as a social gaming platform.