NEW YORK (AP) — 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.
Snapchat spokeswoman Mary Ritti said
Thursday morning that 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 has since been
suspended. The breach came less than a week after security experts
alerted Snapchat of a vulnerability in its system and warned that an
attack could take place.
In response to the warning, Snapchat said
in a blog post last Friday that it had implemented "various safeguards"
over 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. cell phone owners use Snapchat. That amounts to roughly 26
million adults. The Pew study didn’t include users under 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 on Dec. 25, has
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 that 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
says users can delete their Snapchat account if they wish, 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.
"Lastly, ensure that your security settings are up
to scratch on your social media profiles. Be careful about what data you
give away to sites when you sign up — if you don’t think a service
requires your phone number, don’t give it to them," Gibson said.
The
Snapchat breach comes just two weeks after Target was hit with a
massive data security breach that affected as many as 40 million debit
and credit card holders.
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