On the very first day of the new year, when people were welcoming 2014, someone was busy hacking Snapchat and putting subscribers’ details like their phone numbers and usernames on the internet for everyone to see. Information of as many as 4.6 million accounts was very unceremoniously uploaded to the web on a website that goes by the name of SnapchatDB.info.
Due to the heavy traffic that must have been witnessed by this website as soon as the news broke out, it was offline. They displayed 4.6 million subscribers’ usernames as well as incomplete phone numbers with the last two digits hidden. Additionally, the guys over at SnapshatDB spoke to The Verge and said that the developers of the service had not taken the necessary precautions to avoid such attacks.
In case you are worried and want to find out if you are one of those whose accounts have been compromised, then here’s how you can see. Mashable reports that it received an email from Will Smidlein who collaborated with Robbie Trencheny to develop GS Lookup – Snapchat to allow people to check if their security has been breached or not.
You only need to navigate to the website and enter your username in the dedicated slot. The site will then give you the resulting information. Then there’s SnapCheck.org that lets you punch in both username or phone number to find out the same. It should be noted that these websites have not acquired the data themselves, but through the portal which hosted the leaked details.
In case you are one of the Snapchat users whose account details have been compromised immediately change your password to avoid further damages.