Snapchat Update Comes With Curt Apology

Snapchat, the photo messaging service, suffered a major security breach in recent times, something it was given an ample heads-up for, yet did nothing to mitigate. After the account details were leaked, no apology was forthcoming and an update was promised. Such an update has arrived, and with it a brief we're sorry.

Late summer last year, Gibson Research, security researchers, informed Snapchat of a security vulnerability opening up room for a potential exploit in its API. The fix was reportedly very simple, but by Christmas Eve the photo-sharing service still had not corrected the issue. Gibson Security found this frustrating, it would seem, and made the decision to publish how the Snapchat API could be exploited to grab users' data.

Snapchat was apparently unconcerned about this, but by the turn of the new year, some hackers decided to make the possible a reality, exploiting the security issue and publishing a database of millions of Snapchat usernames, as well as truncated phone numbers. This spurred the service into action, and it promised an updated version that would implement some security features.

Today on the company's blog, Snapchat posted as brief announcement of its iOS and Android update that is said to improve the Find Friends feature and tosses in the ability to opt-out of linking one's phone number with their username. Such can be found under the Settings menu. With this update now comes the requirement to verify one's phone number before Find Friends can be used. All this is rounded out with a simple apology: "We are sorry for any promblems this issue may have cause you and we really appreciate your patience and support."

VIA: CNET

SOURCE: Snapchat