Snapchat says millions of user accounts are compromised - Reuters

By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 2, Jan 3 (Reuters / EP) –

– Snapchat, popular courier service, said Thursday that for months was aware of a security breach that allowed hackers this week to collect millions of phone numbers and announced changes to its the system.

An anonymous group called

Snapchat published DB user names and telephone numbers of 4.6 million customers of the service on the eve of New Year, days after the company’s founder-led pro Evan Spiegel, 23 – dismissed warnings that your application still had security issues

.

group of hackers, who said he based in the United States and Europe, made available to the entire database for download, but erased the last two numbers of each phone. Snapchat DB said it was working to raise awareness about security flaws Snapchat, not with a malicious purpose.

In his first public statement since the filtration Snapchat said in a blog post that no “snap”-content-messages was compromised or accessed as part of the attack.

Snapchat was first alerted about the vulnerability in August by a group called Gibson Security.

Snapchat said he made changes to their systems to address weaknesses, but the company also issued a statement on a blog on 27 December downplaying the threat and considering it as “theoretical”.

Snapchat DB carried out the attack and telephone numbers revealed four days later.

computer attack was a rare coup for an application developer created by undergraduate students from Stanford University in 2011.

Snapchat has grown in popularity over the last year because it allows its users, mostly teenagers, send private messages and photographs are destroyed after 10 seconds.

Snapchat immense popularity among young users has become the most watched social network in the world, and Facebook Inc allegedly offered 3,000 million dollars last year in a failed attempt to purchase.

Snapchat new users ask your phone number so that your friends can find them in the service. Telephone numbers were not related to any real name.

Calling

hacking an “abuse” of your system, Snapchat said Thursday that he was initially warned by security experts in August that its “Find Friends” could include weaknesses.

The company did not apologize for the leaks, but said he would make some changes to prevent further unwanted relationships.