Snapchat

Snapchat is one of the nearly popular messaging services available today.

As of June 2016, more 150 meg active users interact with one another daily via Snapchat.

Some use the app strictly for its originally advertised purpose: sending images that are deleted shortly thereafter.

Others are drawn by the service's more recent features. Those include Snapcash, a method introduced for users to transport mobile payments to their friends.

Given the app'due south popularity, it'southward no wonder online criminals have set their sights on hacking users' Snapchat accounts. Some take already met with express success.

For case, back in tardily 2013, a group of hackers published a database containing the usernames and telephone numbers of approximately 4.vi million Snapchat users. Nefarious individuals could have used that information to profile targets beyond multiple web accounts.

We also tin can't forget nearly the security incident that occurred back in Feb 2016. In that set on, someone posed as the company'due south CEO and convinced a Snapchat employee to transport over payroll data. The successful phish ultimately compromised dozens of employees' identities.

Snapchat

To be off-white, a mega breach on the scale of what affected LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Yahoo has yet to strike the messaging app.

Merely that'southward not to say criminals aren't trying to detect a mode into people's accounts. Hackers clearly have Snapchat in their sights, which is why users need to learn how to spot the alarm signs of a hack and how they can recover their accounts if someone compromises them.

Let'due south become started.

Looking for a Warning Sign

When information technology comes to spotting a hack against their accounts, Snapchat users should look out for three alert signs:

Snapchat

  1. Unusual activity. A user finds that their account doesn't expect the same as when they left information technology. Their settings or display proper name might be different. Alternatively, they might take several new friends whom they don't recognize. All those observations indicate to someone having messed with their account.
  2. Loftier rate of re-hallmark. A user shouldn't accept to log into their account every time they try to admission Snapchat's app. Merely they might need to do so if someone'southward been logging on in their proper noun from some other device, thereby logging them out. For that reason, a user should assume hackers are afoot if they need to continue re-authenticating themselves.
  3. Revealing correspondence from Snapchat. Like most web services, Snapchat has implemented measures designed to protect its users' account security. That's why the app's parent company sends emails and/or texts a user whenever a alter is made to their account, such as an updated password or electronic mail address, or when Snapchat detects a login session from an unusual location. If a user starts receiving these types of messages from Snapchat out of the blueish, they tin can bet someone has hacked their accounts.

Recovering your Business relationship

The ease with which users can recover their Snapchat accounts depends on to what extent hackers control them. The greater the corporeality of control, the more difficult the task of recovery. From easiest to hardest, hither'due south how users can recover their accounts:

  1. Change your passwords. In some situations, hackers obtain a user's login credentials, gain access to their profile, and don't do anything with the account settings once they're in that location. If that'due south the case, a user can recover their account by logging in and changing their countersign.
  2. Use "Forgot your Password". Attackers aren't ever hands-off. Sometimes they'll lock a Snapchat user out of their account past changing their password. Fortunately, that user can recover their account by using "Forgot your Countersign," an choice provided by Snapchat at the login screen that passes a temporary password to them via their email accost or mobile phone number.
  3. Contact Snapchat. The worst-case scenario is when hackers ransack a user's business relationship and change not just their countersign just also their e-mail accost, phone number, and other contact information. When that happens, a user should go to Snapchat's assistance folio, fill out a request for an account recovery, and specify that their business relationship has been hacked.

Determination

When it comes to their Snapchat accounts' security, users shouldn't merely tune into detection and response. They should likewise consider how they can forestall a hack in the first place. They tin can do then by using a strong password that'southward unique for their Snapchat business relationship, never sharing access to their login credentials with anyone, and setting upward two-pace verification on their account.

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David Bisson is an infosec news junkie and security journalist. He works as Contributing Editor for Graham Cluley Security News and Associate Editor for Tripwire'south "The Country of Security" blog.