Someone claiming to be behind the reported leak of private account information on millions of Snapchat users says the goal was to raise public awareness about online security holes in the popular photo-sharing app.
A website called SnapchatDB.info went online on New Year’s Eve, offering for download what it said was a database containing the usernames and phone numbers of 4.6 million Snapchat accounts. (The last two digits of the phone numbers were blacked out.)
“This database contains username and phone number pairs of a vast majority of the Snapchat users. This information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue,” the site said.
“The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it.”
By Wednesday morning, the site was taken down, but not before several visitors said they managed to download the database.
In a follow-up statement Wednesday to several tech media sites, including The Verge and TechCrunch, SnapchatDB said:
Read more: Snapchat hacked, info on 4.6 million users reportedly leaked - NBC News.com
A website called SnapchatDB.info went online on New Year’s Eve, offering for download what it said was a database containing the usernames and phone numbers of 4.6 million Snapchat accounts. (The last two digits of the phone numbers were blacked out.)
“This database contains username and phone number pairs of a vast majority of the Snapchat users. This information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue,” the site said.
“The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it.”
By Wednesday morning, the site was taken down, but not before several visitors said they managed to download the database.
In a follow-up statement Wednesday to several tech media sites, including The Verge and TechCrunch, SnapchatDB said:
“Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed. It is understandable that tech startups have limited resources but security and privacy should not be a secondary goal. Security matters as much as user experience does.”TechCrunch said one of its readers found his own number, as well as the number of Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel, on the leaked list.
Read more: Snapchat hacked, info on 4.6 million users reportedly leaked - NBC News.com
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