Oh, no, not again. More photos have been leaked online, but this time they're not of celebrities; they could be from any of Snapchat's 100 million monthly active users. Welcome to your nightmare, and just in time for Halloween, too!
At least 200,000 Snapchat accounts have reportedly been hacked into and leaked on the image board 4chan. If the name of that site sounds familiar, it's because that's also where the nude photos of celebrities were leaked at the end of August.
Keeping in line with the nickname of that leak, "The Fappening," (a gross play on the word "fap," which is Internet slang for "masturbation"), the online community has aptly deemed this latest leak "The Snappening."
"The Snappening" could quite possibly be more terrifying to think about than the celebrity nude photo leak, not only because it hits closer to home since the hackers are targeting people not in the spotlight, but also because of the kinds of photos Snapchat has come to be associated with.
While many people use Snapchat to send their friends "derp" faces, food porn and photos with some Microsoft Paint-like enhancements, some people take advantage of the fact that their photo will disappear a few seconds after someone looks at it.
For this reason, Snapchat has earned the reputation of being a "sexting app." That means that whoever hacked these accounts has potentially gotten their hands on some racy photos, which was probably their intention.
Many were quick to blame Snapchat for this, not only because it's the company's app that was hacked but also because this wouldn't be the first time that Snapchat's protection of its users' privacy has come into question. Millions of phone numbers were leaked on New Year's Day; hackers sent users Snaps of smoothies in February; the Federal Trade Commission charged Snapchat in May for misleading users about all of their messages disappearing.
So was this leak the result of a security breach of Snapchat's servers, too? Snapchat says it wasn't them.
We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks.
— Snapchat (@Snapchat) October 10, 2014
Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our ToU. — Snapchat (@Snapchat) October 10, 2014
In Snapchat, users can take a screenshot of a Snap sent to them, which the app notifies the sender about. However, with third-party apps, users can download and save Snaps without the sender's knowledge. As Mashable points out, senders don't know whether recipients of Snaps are actually using Snapchat or if they're using a third-party app, so even if you don't use a third-party app, there's a possibility that your photos could still be at risk.
"We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed," Snapchat declares.
The leak was allegedly perpetrated by SnapSaved.com, which has been offline for several months. The site was a web-based client for Snapchat that enabled users to access Snaps from a web browser. Apparently, SnapSaved.com kept all the images received or sent by users without the users' knowledge of the actions.
Blogger Kenny Withers, who is credited with first reporting the hack, said that a 4chan user claimed to have hacked the accounts with the third-party app Snap Save.
"My app do[es]n't save users' snaps on our server; Snap Save just save[s] snapchats on user's phone," Snap Save's owner said.
However, the legitimacy of the leak has come into question. Some believe the photos were already available online through websites and Reddit threads dedicated to sharing saved Snaps. A reverse image search performed by independent privacy and security researcher Ashkan Soltani backs up this claim.
@kenny_withers All but 4 of the ones on your site were already available online. Thoughts as to legitimacy of leak? pic.twitter.com/L0NtGhBv28
— ashkan soltani (@ashk4n) October 10, 2014
Soltani also tweeted that the person claiming to be the leaker says he won't leak the photos because of privacy concerns, although Soltani also points out that there is now a website hosting possible "Snappening" videos, some of which are NSFW.
Someone claiming to be the #snappening leaker says he's decided to not leak Snapchat photos due of privacy concerns https://t.co/nQCTXFKd7Q — ashkan soltani (@ashk4n) October 11, 2014
Tho there's also now a website hosting a few potential #snappening videos — likely from leaked torrent https://t.co/eU7ZIPIr1k (some NSFW)
— ashkan soltani (@ashk4n) October 11, 2014
The hackers reportedly hoped to create a giant database that could be searched by username and that included the 13 GB of photos and videos from the hack. Business Insider reports it is already being worked on.
