Report: 4.6 Million Snapchat Phone Numbers And Usernames Leaked Online

Snapchat is leaking

While many Snapchat users are used to nudity, many of them only thought they were exposed for the 10 or so seconds that late-night selfie was on their recipient’s screen. But a new report says the phone numbers and usernames associated with more than 4.6 million Snapchatters in North America were leaked and posted online.

A site run by a mysterious, anonymous group or person called SnapchatDB posted the information on its site with the details of the app’s users next to their locations. Though the last two digits of each phone number have been obscured “to minimize spam and abuse,” but SnapchatDB says it’ll reveal the info to anyone who contacts it asking for the full number, reports The Verge.

Using that information could allow snoopers to try to “find phone number information associated with Facebook and Twitter accounts, or simply to figure out the phone numbers of people you wish to get in touch with.”

So that’s creepy, but at least the site has been taken down by now.

Last week Snapchat discussed concerns Gibson Security had with the app, after it claimed it had found a major security hole in app’s “find friends with phone numbers” function. Snapchat responded to that claim on Dec. 27 saying in theory, if someone uploaded a bunch of phone numbers — “like every number in an area code, or every possible number in the US” — they could ostensibly match those with usernames.

But it added that it had also “implemented various safeguards to make it more difficult” to pull that off in the last year.

Despite those measures taken by Snapchat, SnapchatDB claimed that the leak was possibly “through the recently patched Snapchat exploit.”

If you’re worried that your phone number has been leaked, you can use a tool from Gibson Security to look it up. Then you might want to delete your Snapchat account and tighten up your security settings on any other social media accounts to prevent creepers from contacting you. Unfortunately as Gibson points out, this won’t erase your number from the leaked database.

4.6 million Snapchat phone numbers and usernames leaked [The Verge]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist