Snapchat’s 4.6 million users’ phone numbers and usernames have been leaked online, and is available for download as a CSV file or a SQL Dump.
We at 4CAST never got into the Snapchat craze. But we have some friends who are super addicted to the social network, that lets you auto-destroy the images which you share with others. If you are one of those who are crazy about the service, then be warned that your phone number and usernames have been exposed.
A security firm, Gibson Security, revealed that they have notified Snapchat about a vulnerability earlier, that would let the hackers access the username and phone numbers of the users using Snapchat. But then, Snapchat replied back in a blogpost claiming that this is a non-issue, and that the company will not be worried about this.
But sorry Snapchat, hackers proved themselves that they were true. A website has been put up to explore and let anyone download the entire leaked user information in a CSV or SQL format.
The website stated that Snapchat is too reluctant to fix this exploit:
This database contains username and phone number pairs of a vast majority of the Snapchat users. This information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue. The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it.
For now, we have censored the last two digits of the phone numbers in order to minimize spam and abuse. Feel free to contact us to ask for the uncensored database. Under certain circumstances, we may agree to release it.
We have reached out to Snapchat about this leak, and we hope they’d take this issue seriously. At least now.