Hackers have published the usernames and phone numbers of more than 4.6 million Snapchat users in order to “raise public awareness on how reckless many internet companies are with user information”.
A site hosting the data went live on New Year’s Day but has since been taken offline, with individuals claiming responsibility for the hack telling technology site The Vergethat this was “not due to legal action but due to the hosting provider being intimidated by the overwhelming attention.”
The hack comes after Australian-based security researchers Gibson Securityannounced on Christmas Day that they haddiscovered a flaw in the photo-sharing app’s code. Two days later Snapchat acknowledged the existence of the vulnerability and said they had “ implemented various safeguards” to protect users’ data.
However, after posting the data online, individuals claiming responsibility for the hack said that “once we started scraping on a large scale, [Snapchat] decided to implement very minor obstacles, which were still far from enough.
“Even now the exploit persists. It is still possible to scrape this data on a large scale. Their latest changes are still not too hard to circumvent.”
The researchers who first highlighted the problem have stressed that they are unaffiliated with the hackers and do not condone their actions. They have also created a website allowing individuals to check if their information was leaked. Individuals in the UK should be safe as the hack mainly affects Snapchat’s eight million American users.
No comments:
Post a Comment