Snapchat

Did you see a lot of spam on Snapchat over the weekend? The company acknowledged the increasing amounts of bogus messages in a blog post on Monday, but says the unwanted Snaps are unrelated to the Find Friends security breach last month. It also offered a quick fix for blocking spam from your feed. If Continue Reading →

Evan Spiegel blew it. For months, security researchers warned Spiegel that Snapchat, the social media platform he and a Stanford buddy created, had a major privacy flaw. The Huffington Post writes Spiegel and his team never fixed the problem. Then, in late 2013, a hacker stole phone records and usernames of millions of Snapchat users and Continue Reading →

Love is supposed to mean never having to say you’re sorry. But Snapchat has expressed both love and apologies for a bug that caused headaches for the millions of users whose names and phone numbers were exposed unexpectedly. In a blog post on Thursday, Snapchat said it was “sorry for any problems this issue may have Continue Reading →

The social network Snapchat has hired lobbyists in Washington for the first time. Snapchat, which allows users to send photos and videos that disappear after a certain amount of time, has signed up with the powerhouse K Street firm Heather Podesta + Partners, according to a lobbying disclosure form filed Jan. 1. The lobbying firm Continue Reading →

If we learned anything this past year, it’s that information we store online is exceptionally vulnerable. Our metadata (the data that describes who we are and what we do) is in the hands of people who are about as successful at protecting it as 1850’s bankers were at protecting money in the Old West. Sure, Continue Reading →

Snapchat said on Thursday it would alter its app to make it harder for malicious users to collect and leak millions of usernames connected to phone numbers. The move comes after a group calling itself SnapchatDB rang in the New Year by leaking 4.6 million partially redacted phone numbers, in a stunt they said was Continue Reading →

Last week security researchers published a way to skim Snapchat’s full database, and it appears someone did it before the vulnerability — which, according to those researchers had been known for months — was addressed. A website called SnapchatDB! has appeared posting SQL/CSV files that it claims contain the username and associated phone number for Continue Reading →

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 Continue Reading →

2013 was the year of the selfie, according to the Oxford English Dictionary — but self-snaps aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Everybody is taking selfies, from President Obama to astronaut Aki Hoshide. With the proliferation of smartphones with front-facing cameras, selfies have become mainstream. And with apps like Snapchat and Instagram that encourage people to Continue Reading →

Snapchat busted out an update to its app today just before the holidays. The new version of the ephemeral messaging app includes several color filters, a new ‘special text’ font and a few other additions. The main update is the ‘visual filters’ that will add juiced up color effects to your images. If you’re stumped Continue Reading →