All Sections

Snapchat hack exposes details of 4.6m users

A snapchat cyber hack has leaked the usernames and phone numbers of 4.6 million users.

A cyber attack on Snapchat has exposed the details of 4.6 million users. The usernames and phone numbers of these users were posted on a website called SnapchatDB.info, which has now been suspended.

Not so snap happy: details of Snapchat users leaked

The hackers behind the cyber attack explained that they were trying to raise public awareness around the issue of how easy it was to hack the service. They said: “It is understandable that tech startups have limited resources but security and privacy should not be a secondary goal. Security matters as much as user experience does.”

The hackers exploited the vulnerability in Snapchat’s Find Friends interface, which had been reported to Snapchat just days earlier. However, on December 27th, Snapchat responded to the issue by stating: “Theoretically, if someone were able to upload a huge set of phone numbers, like every number in an area code, or every possible number in the U.S, they could create a database of the results and match usernames to phone numbers that way.”

Snapchat added: “Over the past year we’ve implemented various safeguards to make it more difficult to do. We recently added additional counter-measures and continue to make improvements to combat spam and abuse.”

However, the hackers accused Snapchat of being “too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late.” 

Snapchat is now working with the US law enforcement to resolve the situation. 

Image: Flickr

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *