Hackers have published the account information of 4.6 million users of photo messaging app Snapchat. The information, which includes usernames and partial phone numbers, with all but the last two digits on display, was published on a specially created site: SnapchatDB.info.

Katie Collins, Wired.co.uk, 02/01/2014

It is truly worrying to me how often we find stories like this one. A person out there desperately trying to crack open a service that holds person data of normal individuals and freely distribute them. What do they hope to gain from this? To my mind I see only a way to cause damage to others. If that is what is desired then the internet needs much stronger laws for the capturing and punishment of such individuals or organisations.

I would further add that for every dangerous hacker out there, we need as many talented security experts working on the side of the angels, to protect data and users from threats. As we see from the above piece the people who cracked Snapchat had the intention to raise the awareness of security flaws in the system Snapchat uses. I say do not compromise the users data in the process. It is reported in the piece that the hackers might release the full and uncensored versions of the mobile phones numbers stolen to further their goals. A truly horrific idea for anyone with the Snapchat application currently installed on their smartphone.

I truly hope that however this issue is dealt with by the Snapchat management they put the needs of the user first and protect whatever infrastructure they put in place from this point forward.