Security Alarm for Snapchat: "At the risk phone numbers" - The Republic

ROME – A bug in security could jeopardize the telephone number of the users of Snapchat, one of the most downloaded messaging app of 2013. According to researchers at Gibson Security, a U.S. company specializing in computer security, through an amendment to the “Find Friends” application designed by the 23 year-old Evan Spiegel, a hacker could track down the phone number and attach it to Snapchat user. READ ALSO: All risks of Snapchat

The function, designed to help users to find their friends, is actually based on the data contained within the user’s telephone book, and mapping this data with that account Snapchat, a malintezionato could track down thousands of users, exponentially more numbers traced Snapchat mean multiple accounts linked together and so on. In a month you could create a detailed database of 290 million phones, at the rate of five users per minute.

The alarm on the security of the application was launched last August, but updates issued Snapchat from the last four months, have not resolved the situation, according to American researchers.

Snapchat is one of the phenomena of the year nell’istant messaging. The application allows you to share photos and videos with the peculiarity of being able to choose in advance the period of “life” of the file before it destroys itself. Popular among teenagers, who take advantage of this feature to practice “sexting”, ie the exchange of photos and erotic clip, counting on the fact that the content is volatile and clears in a few seconds. I n Snapchat a year has gone from 60 million to more than 400 shared files. It ‘hard to believe that this problem can be a danger for the future of the app on which he had set his sights even Facebook, but it is quite obvious that one of the first decisions of 2014 should be to find a solution to this headache.