NEW YORK — Snapchat, the disappearing-message service popular with young people, has been quiet following a security breach that allowed hackers to collect the usernames and phone numbers of millions of its users. ADVERTISING NEW YORK — Snapchat, the disappearing-message
NEW YORK — Snapchat, the disappearing-message service popular with young people, has been quiet following a security breach that allowed hackers to collect the usernames and phone numbers of millions of its users.
Company spokeswoman Mary Ritti said Thursday morning the company is assessing the situation, but did not have further comment.
As Americans rang in the new year, hackers reportedly published 4.6 million Snapchat usernames and phone numbers on a website called snapchatdb.info, which since was suspended. The breach came less than a week after security experts alerted Snapchat of a vulnerability in its system and warned an attack could take place.
In response to the warning, Snapchat said in a blog post last Friday it implemented “various safeguards” during the past year that would make it more difficult to steal large sets of phone numbers. But the measures appear to have fallen short.
The incident bruises the image of a young company that reportedly turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook last year. According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet &American Life Project, 9 percent of U.S. cellphone owners use Snapchat, which amounts to roughly 20 million adults, based on 2012 census data. The Pew study didn’t include users younger than 18, a demographic with which Snapchat is especially popular. The Los Angeles-based company, which has no source of revenue, has not disclosed its own user figures.
What should users do? Gibson Security, the firm that warned Snapchat of the security vulnerability Dec. 25, created a site, — http://lookup.gibsonsec.org/ — that lets users type in their username to see if their phone number was among those leaked. Of two user accounts the Associated Press checked, one was found to have been compromised.
Gibson Security did not publish the last two digits of the phone numbers.
Gibson said users can delete their Snapchat account if they want, but “this won’t remove your phone number from the already circulating leaked database.” Users can also ask their phone company to give them a new phone number.
