It’s not an easy week for Snapchat users, as it faces serious security threats and breaches from a hacker who threatens to leak users’ data and their supposedly destroyed photos as well.
An anonymous user on 4chan has recently created a thread on the message board, claiming to soon release thousands of users’ videos and photos, many of which are explicit contents, in a searchable database. This unfortunate leak is now referred to as ‘The Snappening’ by netizens.
However, Snapchat defended its company by saying that the alleged photos and videos were not from its database, but from a third-party application. “We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks,” a Snapchat representative said in a statement. “Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.”
The third-party app in question is most likely to be Snap Save, according to Business Insider. The now-long-gone app allowed users to keep Snapchat photos and videos before they self-destruct. 4chan users claim that the collection of photos has a large amount of child pornography, including many videos sent between teenagers who believed the files would be immediately deleted after viewing.
It has immediately raised serious concerns about the safety of Snapchat service and its protection against users’ data. Although the company is never directly hacked, it’s still a harsh reminder of how third-party app can present a real security risk, and thus can indirectly affect Snapchat as a whole.
Snapchat is yet to comment further on this story, Snapchat users will get more news and information in this regard.
