Snapchat now has to deal with yet another potentially large security vulnerability as Gibson Security released a new report reiterating that it is possible for hackers to obtain Snapchat users’ phone numbers. They initially revealed this hack four months ago and it went ignored by Snapchat. Now, after multiple app updates, Gibson Security says the exploits detailed in its initial report have still not been addressed.
“Given that it’s been around four months since our last Snapchat release, we figured we’d do a refresher on the latest version, and see which of the released exploits had been fixed (full disclosure: none of them),” the researchers say in their report. In an interview with Business Insider, they said, “We [hope] that Snapchat audits their code and improves how security and bugs are handled in the company.”
Snapchat is based on the premise that the photos you send will disappear. As a result, users often send unflattering or even risque photos of themselves. As such, they often value anonymity and place a lot of trust in Snapchat’s security. Any breach in Snapchat’s apps could be quite damaging to Snapchat’s success and in that regard, this vulnerability is no different from other big Snapchat hacks.
In January, it was revealed that users could find Snapchat videos in a file browser while a phone was connected to a Mac or PC. And in October, an app called SnapHack was released in the App Store that allowed users to save Snapchat photos if the photo was opened in SnapHack before it was opened in Snapchat.
