Snapchat users are expressing their concerns after hackers threatened to publish more explicit photographs sent through the service. Images already posted online during the past week have already been removed, but it seems that further photographs are due to be leaked. Those at risk are said to include people who used the service through third-party apps, with Snapchat themselves claiming that their own servers have not been breached.
Branded by some as “the Snappening”, it comes after the “Fappening”, in which sexually-explicit photographs of celebrities were leaked online. The hackers are reportedly claiming to have access to 13GB worth of pictures, with images having been intercepted across the last few years. Snapchat is adamant that the leaks are due to no fault of their own, and its thought that two unauthorised services allowing people to save Snapchat message permanently are to blame. Users of Snapchat are usually only permitted to see photographs for a couple of seconds before they are deleted forever.
It’s though that one of the unauthorised services is adding all pictures passing through it to a database. A Snapchat client called Snapsave is being blamed for some of the leaks. Its owner Georgie Casey has denied this, claiming “Our app had nothing to do with it and we’ve never logged username and passwords”. Snapchat has been blamed for a leak of over four-and-a-half million usernames and phone numbers that occurred earlier in 2014, and spam messages have been sent from some user accounts without their knowledge.
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