Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
HACKERS CLAIM TO have acquired a giant database of intercepted Snapchat photos and videos that were sent using the popular photo and video sharing service, Snapchat.
It is believed that hackers have been collecting the files for years. Shocked users of the notorious chat forum 4chan are referring to the hack as “The Snappening,” noting that this is far bigger than the iCloud hacks that recently targeted celebrities.
Underground photo-trading chat rooms have been filled in recent weeks with hints that something big was coming.
Thursday night it finally arrived.
A third-party Snapchat client app has been collecting every single photo and video file sent through it for years, giving hackers access to a 13GB library of Snapchats that users thought had been deleted.
Stolen images
Users of 4chan have downloaded the files and are creating a searchable database that will allow people to search the stolen images by Snapchat username.
The database of Snapchat files posted online was hosted on viralpop.com, a fake competition website that installed malicious software on the computers of users trying to take part. That site has now been suspended and taken offline, although thousands of people have already downloaded the collection of Snapchats.
There are two sites that may have been hacked. One news report suggests the hacked third-party Snapchat client was Snapsave. The popular Android app allowed users to keep Snapchat photos and videos, which automatically delete when viewed through the official Snapchat app.
Photo trading
But an anonymous photo trader contacted Business Insider to tell us that the site affected was SnapSaved.com. The service acted as a web client for the Snapchat app that allowed users to receive photos and videos, and save them online.
What its users didn’t realise was that the site was quietly collecting everything that passed through it, storing incriminating Snapchats on a web server, with the usernames of senders attached.
SnapSaved disappeared several months ago. Now the URL redirects to a Danish e-commerce site that sells set-top boxes and TV antennas. Most of the intercepted Snapchat photographs posted online featured overlaid messages in Danish.
4chan users claim that SnapSaved was indeed the source of the intercepted files.
We don’t know if the third-party Snapchat client, whether Snapsave or SnapSaved, was created with the purpose of intercepting images. It may have been the case that hackers accessed the servers of one of the sites, which had inadvertently stored the files, and rehosted the directory online.
Snapchat statement
In a statement to Business Insider, Snapchat confirmed the images came from third-party sites, while denying that Snapchat’s servers were breached by hackers:
We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.
4chan users say the collection of photos has a large amount of child pornography, including many videos sent between teenagers who believed the files would be immediately deleted after viewing. Half of Snapchat’s users are teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17.
Snapchat has a poor history when it comes to the security of users’ data.
In 2013, security researchers revealed that it was possible to find the phone number of any Snapchat user through the app. The company was forced to apologise after 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers leaked online on New Year’s Day.
In February 2014, hackers used Snapchat to send photos of fruit smoothies to thousands of people.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
That pic of me in bed with Beyonce is fake. Honestly.
Sorry Tony. The pic was real. It was the Beyonce that was fake.
100,000 pictures of people’s dinner, street signs and weird looking people on public transport.
I don’t think the pics are of that nature! The whole point of snap chat was to send nudey pics
No way? You mean to say that people actually go onto the internet to see pictures of naked people? More shockingly of all, celebrities? What is the world coming to at all at all…at all?
It’s not celebrities,it’s mainly teenagers. Do you even know what snapchat is? Did you even read the article?
When will people learn. Never put anything online or through these types of apps that you wouldn’t be prepared to show the whole world.
He should have sold snapchat when he had the chance
As a 19 year old, I’ve just been gripped by fear.
I should plant a nudey pic through Snapchat to a friend. There would be a mass outbreak of severe nausea if it leaks. Now that I think about it, I’m not misanthropic enough to do such a horrible thing.
13gb of pics in years…. The app has over 30million users. The amount of data is available is far greater than 13gb
Because they claimed to have every picture ever sent, right?
NO this so called “hacker” either set up a 3rd party APP via Google store/Apple or used a known Snapchat API and built a website around it (something like this website http://snapchat.am/) They obviously coded the website or app to save every image sent or received from people using it. So Snapchat wasn’t hacked in anyway. The sad thing is, most of the people who will fall Victim of this will be young teenagers
Now! Let that be a lesson to yis,
Little hussy feckers
Another reason to stay away from these sites snapchat Facebook etc there storing everything on people information equals dollars
Hahahahahahaha
have your say