Users of the phone app "Snapchat" are facing the possibility of having their naked photos leaked online (if they aren't online yet). The photos were reportedly leaked (and more to be leaked) via the now infamous online forum 4Chan. This is the same site that leaked the naked photos of Jennifer Lawrence and dozens of other celebrities.
USA Today reports:
Hackers were able to collect user photos and videos sent through a third-party app that lets you save Snapchat transmissions. Within the traditional Snapchat app, photos and videos that users send to friends "disappear" after several seconds.
On its Twitter feed, the messaging service confirmed that users photos had been compromised, but that they "were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our ToU."
A second tweet, Snapchat said, "We can confirm that Snapchat's servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks."
The photo service is known to have a huge user base consisting of minors, which brings up the issue of the possibility of child pornography.
USA Today reports further:
Whether the incident is a hoax or "one of 4chan's elaborate hoaxes," says Aryeh Goretsky, a research with security firm ESET, app users need to practice restraint. "It is important to keep in mind that while an initial product or service may be quite secure, plug-ins, add-ons, extensions and third-party offerings used with it may not be subject to the same high levels of security, reliability or confidentiality."
Even Snapchat users who did not use third-party apps could be victims, said Patrick Wardle, director of research at crowd-source security startup Synack. "This is an interesting scenario because the sender of an image doesn't know if the recipient is using a third party service like SnapSaved.com or other third party applications. Therefore, everyone who sends a message using SnapChat's service could be at risk," Wardle said.
You can never be too safe!
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