After hackers compromised an estimated 4.6 million Snapchat accounts, the Venice, California-based messaging startup is finally admitting it has a problem—but it’s making no apologies.
Over the holidays, a whitehat hacker collective published what it claimed was Snapchat’s API and two security exploits that could allow hackers to scrape phone numbers and personal data from the application. Snapchat responded that, hypothetically, it could happen.
On Tuesday, it did happen. An anonymous hacker group published a database of Snapchat phone numbers with the last two digits blocked out, compromising 4.6 million accounts.
Snapchat doesn’t seem too concerned about the breach, however. The company said Wednesday it will be releasing an updated version of the application that lets users opt-out of the “find friends” feature that allowed their accounts to be compromised.
We will be releasing an updated version of the Snapchat application that will allow Snapchatters to opt out of appearing in Find Friends after they have verified their phone number. We’re also improving rate limiting and other restrictions to address future attempts to abuse our service.
Snapchat has exploded in popularity since it first hit the iOS App Store in September 2011, but this security breach may not deter users as no snaps were actually compromised in the hack.
