According to reports, some 4chan users are claiming that a a third-party app used to access the Snapchat service has been breached giving access to over 200,000 images matched with usernames. The app in question is named SnapSaved and is used to get around Snapchat's system that alerts users when someone grabs a screenshot of an image that has been posted. Apparently SnapSaved was using a cloud architecture to save the images being grabbed from Snapchat, along with everything else that was being passed to a user, like usernames. According to posters on 4chan, the image database will be posted online by this Sunday, October 12th.
Original reports claimed the service that was hacked was Snapsave, which does the same thing as SnapSaved – grab Snapchat images without the sender being notified. However, a representative for Snapsave, Georgie Casey, says Snapsave “had nothing to do with it and we've never logged username/passwords.” Casey also indicated Snapsave does not use a cloud system to save images.
Snapchat itself has also issued a statement regarding the claimed breach:
“We can confirm that Snapchat's servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users' security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.”
The SnapSaved web site is currently down and reports indicate that it has been for a while. The web site was the portal to the service and there are some suspicions that it was setup for the sole purpose of collecting the images for eventual “leaking” by hackers. A report also indicates that the image database file was initially made available through viralpop.com which was installing malicious software on the computers of users who were trying to access the file.
sources: Engadget, Business Insider
