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 | Snapchat hacked The perpetrators of this latest high profile hack say it was not malicious but it gives businesses one more reason to ensure employees are using different login details for personal and work-related accounts. |
| | Was Snapchat ever a good idea? Well at least 4.6 million users seemed to think so until a major security breach saw their personal details posted online. Just one more reason for businesses to ensure their employees are using different login details for personal and work-related accounts.
Hackers posted usernames and phone numbers to snapchatdb.com and while this site was quickly closed down, the database remained accessible via cached versions on search engines for days after.
Hackers say attack was not malicious In an apparent act of mercy, the hackers blurred the last two digits of the phone numbers and, speaking to the media, stated that their actions were not malicious.
"Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed," they told techcrunch.com.
| This is not the first time that the vulnerabilities in the hugely popular photo and video sharing app have been in the spotlight. In fact only weeks before, security specialist Gibson Security warned of the potential issue, urging Snapchat to take decisive action. Gibson Security has insisted that it had nothing to do with the hack and did not condone the action in any way. | "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," said the hackers. |
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SNAPCHAT IN GOOD COMPANY
This is just one of several goliath breaches to take place in 2013. In October, Adobe confirmed that 2.9 million accounts had been compromised, giving hackers access to usernames and passwords. Facebook, the New York Times, Apple, Twitter, Evernote, Drupal and several other international companies also experienced highly sophisticated attacks during the course of the year.
Snapchat has said that it is taking decisive action to plug security holes; however, the hackers have said that it is still not 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," said the hackers.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel appeared on NBC saying he was ‘outraged’ by the attacks although he had come under fire for not offering users an apology. |
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