An estimated 200,000 photos as well as video messages sent via Snapchat were reportedly hacked and were released on the site 4chan last Thursday. Previously, hackers released private photos of celebrities via the same message board last August. This latest unfortunate incident was called by 4chan's users as "Snappening."
Snapchat is an app that allows users to send ephemeral messages via photo or video and then disappears after 10 seconds. Since the photos or videos will be gone after a few seconds, user take advantage of it by sending racy or nude photos to their intended receiver, thinking that it will not be saved and cannot be passed on to anyone else.
However, most senders are not aware that the app uses a third party that can allow the users to store the photos sent to them without the sender knowing about it.
According to reports, the app Snapchat was not hacked. However, it was one of these third-party apps that allow users to save photos. Around 200,000 photos collected over the years could include those who are under aged. If this is proven to be true, the perpetrator could be facing jail time since this will be considered as child pornography. Those who distributed the photos or in possession of them will also be implicated.
According to a spokesperson for Snapchat, "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." She also stated to Huffington Post that their app warns its users not to trust third party apps on the matter of security and privacy.
Last May, FTC accused Snapchat for falsely advertising security. According to statement released by FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, "If a company markets privacy and security as key selling points in pitching its service to consumers, it is critical that it keep those promises. Any company that makes misrepresentations to consumers about its privacy and security practices risks F.T.C. action."
At the time Snapchat issued this statement, "While we were focused on building, some things didn't get the attention they could have. One of those was being more precise with how we communicated with the Snapchat community. This morning we entered into a consent decree with the FTC that addresses concerns raised by the commission. Even before today's consent decree was announced, we had resolved most of those concerns over the past year by improving the wording of our privacy policy, app description, and in-app just-in-time notifications. And we continue to invest heavily in security and countermeasures to prevent abuse."
