Users of 4chan have downloaded the files, and are currently in the process of creating a searchable database allowing people to search the stolen images by Snapchat username.
4chan
The database of Snapchat files posted online was hosted on viralpop.com, a fake competition website that installed malicious software on the computers of users trying to take part. That site has now been suspended and taken offline, although thousands of people have already downloaded the collection of Snapchats.
This is what the collection of intercepted Snapchat photos and videos looked like:
Viralpop
There are 2 Sites That May Have Been Hacked
One news report suggests the hacked third-party Snapchat client was Snapsave. The popular Android app allowed users to keep Snapchat photos and videos, which automatically delete when viewed through the official Snapchat app.
But an anonymous photo trader contacted Business Insider to tell us that the site affected was actually SnapSaved.com. The service acted as a web client for the Snapchat app that allowed users to receive photos and videos, and save them online. What its users didn’t realize was that the site was quietly collecting everything that passed through it, storing incriminating Snapchats on a web server, with the usernames of senders attached.
This is what SnapSaved looked like in October 2013:
Snapsaved.com
SnapSaved disappeared several months ago. Now the URL redirects to a Danish e-commerce site that sells set-top boxes and television antennas. Most of the intercepted Snapchat photographs posted online featured overlaid messages in Danish.4chan users claim that SnapSaved was indeed the source of the intercepted files:
4chan
We don’t know whether the third-party Snapchat client, whether Snapsave or SnapSaved, was created with the purpose of intercepting images. It may have been the case that hackers accessed the servers of one of the sites, which had inadvertently stored the files, and rehosted the directory online.
In a statement to Business Insider, Snapchat confirmed the images came from third-party sites, while denying that Snapchat’s servers were breached by hackers:
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.
4chan users say the collection of photos has a large amount of child pornography, including many videos sent between teenagers who believed the files would be immediately deleted after viewing. Half of Snapchat’s users are teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17.
Snapchat has a poor history when it comes to the security of users’ data. In 2013, security researchers revealed that it was possible to find the phone number of any Snapchat user through the app. The company was forced to apologize after 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers leaked online on New Year’s Day. In February 2014, hackers used Snapchat to send photos of fruit smoothies to thousands of people.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-hacked-the-snappening-2014-10#ixzz3FkyJNGyj
source: JAMES COOK via Business Insider