AfterDawn: News

Snapchat finally apologizes for massive phone number leak

Following the major security breach last month that allowed hackers to collect the usernames and phone numbers of 4.6 million users, Snapchat said earlier this week that it would update the application with a more secure version.

The new version will allow users to opt out of the "Find Friends" feature that was the cause of the breach. The company also says it will block all future attempts to abuse the service or its features.



Over a week after the hack, the company has finally apologized, as well.

Reads the company's blog post:

This morning we released a Snapchat update for Android and iOS that improves Find Friends functionality and allows Snapchatters to opt-out of linking their phone number with their username. This option is available in Settings > Mobile #.

This update also requires new Snapchatters to verify their phone number before using the Find Friends service.

Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 9 Jan 2014 21:32

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• 5 comments

• cart0181

  If you have someone's username and phone number, does that mean you can get all their Snapchats too?
  

  10.1.2014 01:34 #1

• SomeBozo

  I wonder why companies aren't required by law to store all user data encrypted on disk. So one might hack a system but get useless garbled data...
  
  

  10.1.2014 02:24 #2

• elduderino

  Originally posted by cart0181: If you have someone's username and phone number, does that mean you can get all their Snapchats too? Huh? No. They're "erased" instantly. Who knows where those get stored. They say it's instantly gone but you better not take their word for it.

  10.1.2014 09:42 #3

• Bozobub

  It DOES mean, however, that you can potentially masquerade as another user.

  10.1.2014 16:46 #4

• ChikaraNZ

  Snapchat..too little, too late.
  First point - they were advised abut this vulnerability months before it was exploited, yet they chose to ignore it.
  That makes them much more culpable than a company that has a data breach through some newly discovered exploit only.
  Second point - why did it take them so long to apologise?
  
  I hope they are severely punished for deliberately choosing to leave unsafe software unpatched for so long that caused this data breach.
  

  11.1.2014 01:40 #5