SnapChat Hack: 200,000 Naked Photos Leaked?

In just over a month after hackers released the private photos of several celebrities, a huge database of seized SnapChat photos and videos collected over the years have allegedly been hacked by 4chan users, an image-based bulletin board, according to Newsweek.

The hack, referred to as "The Snappening", is noted as something bigger than "The Fappening" which is a series of iCloud hacks that recently targeted famous Hollywood celebrities. According to the same article from Newsweek, almost 13 GB of SnapChat photos that include underage sensitive and nude pictures have been hacked by 4chan users. Although SnapChat automatically deletes sent photos and videos after they have been viewed, it seems that the photos were stolen by hacked third-party Android apps Snapsave and Snapsaved.com which allow users to screencap or store images and videos sent through the photo chat application. 

On October 10, Thursday, SnapChat tweeted that there was never a breach in their system and insists that the third-party apps are the ones to blame. They added, "We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed."

However, Snapsave developer Georgie Casey insisted on a statement to Engadget that his app didn't save photos online, saying, "Our app had nothing to do with it and we've never logged username/passwords."

According to a report from Business Insider, 4chan users have already downloaded the hacked files and are creating a database that will allow people to view the images by SnapChat usernames. The database was hosted on viralpop.com, which has now been suspended and taken down. But numerous netizens have already downloaded the set of SnapChat leaks.

In the same report from Business Insider, it was stated that Snapsaved.com, a web client for SnapChat, was the compromised site. The service allows users to receive photos and videos and save a copy of it online. Little did the users know the site was stealthily storing everything that passed through it, including usernames of senders attached.

Newsweek reports that the content on Snapsaved.com has been deleted several months ago. Its URL now redirects to a Danish e-commerce service.

This wasn't the first time that SnapChat's security was breached. According to LAist, about 5 million users had their usernames, passwords, and phone numbers revealed back in January by third-party hackers. In February of this year, hackers also penetrated SnapChat by sending photos of fruit smoothies to thousands of people.

One of the reasons that SnapChat became highly popular is its conduciveness to sexting, because the photos are automatically deleted once viewed. Because of SnapChat's popularity among teenagers aged 13-17, there's a huge possibility that "The Snappening" contains a massive amount of child pornography.