The Register described Snapchat’s post as a “red rag to a bull”. The site, which offers a service where users send pictures which are visible for only a few seconds, had previously ignored warnings from Gibson Security claiming they were ‘theoretical’, according to The Register’s report. Gibson Security, the Australian security researchers who uncovered the vulnerability – published months before the hack – likened Snapchat’s approach to security to a restaurant which spent, “millions on decoration, but barely anything on cleanliness.” Snapchat has now promised to update its apps to allow users to ‘opt out’ of the Find Friends feature which allowed hackers to match numbers to names, according to The Next Web.

The numbers published all come from America, Sky reports. The apps offered self-deleting messages, and may have appealed to users with something to hide. Sky News described how “worried users” are searching the database, published by unknown attackers on a website hosted in Panama. The hack could be a huge blow to the self-deleting messaging service, one of whose major selling points is its supposedly ‘discreet’ nature. Hackers have published what they claim is a database of 4.6 million Snapchat users, with phone numbers matched to usernames. The hack could be a huge blow to the ‘discreet’ photo-message service. Hackers have published what they claim is a database of 4.6 million Snapchat users, with phone numbers matched to usernames, which is searchable online now.

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