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Friday, March 29, 2024

“The Snappening”: Snapchats leaked from third-party app

Celebrities are not the only ones having their personal pictures leaked online.  

Photos and videos from Snapchat, a popular photo messaging application, were released Friday.

More than 100,000 images were leaked from a third-party app using Snapchat, Business Insider reported.

Hackers have been compiling the Snapchat files for years onto the chat forum 4Chan. A majority of the content released onto the Internet contained nude photos of minors. Users on 4Chan are referring to the hack as “The Snappening.”

Bruce Floyd, social media manager for University Athletic Association, said services like Snapchat can never reveal compromising photos if they are never submitted in the first place.

“I hope it makes people aware about the kinds of content that they are posting,” Floyd said.

Snapchat has confirmed that these leaked photos came from third-party sites, according to Business Insider. A third-party Snapchat client application has been collecting every file exchanged through the application, providing hackers with access to a library.

Files sent through the official Snapchat application are automatically deleted after an allotted shared time. With an application called Snapsave, users can keep Snapchat photos and videos. News reports have suggested this was one of the applications intercepted by hackers.

This is not the first time Snapchat has been hacked. Last year, Snapchat users’ phone numbers were stolen.

UF psychology senior Briana Glick, an avid Snapchat user, said she will now be more careful with what she sends.

“It is an invasion of privacy that Snapchat is leaking these pictures,” the 21-year-old said. “It definitely makes me feel more apprehensive in using Snapchat.”

[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 10/13/2014]

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