Snapchat gets hacked, basically says “NBD, you guys”

Only weeks after Snapchat made the headlights for spurning a $3+ billion buyout offer, the company is back in the limelight in a less-than-ideal fashion.

Snapchat joins the ranks of tech startups experiencing data breach issues recently.  This list includes the likes of Buffer, MongoHQ, and Facebook, to name a few.  Unlike the others, Snapchat data breach was clearly coming.

According to a recent article,  Gibson Researchers figured out that Snapchat could be hacked, allowing access to user’s phone numbers paired with usernames.  They tried to notify snapchat of the weakness but were ignored.  The researchers published their findings on Christmas eve, and snapchat numbers were hacked a week later on New Year’s eve.   In fact, 4.6M usernames and corresponding phone numbers were leaked — a massive liability!

Snapchat has been surprisingly unapologetic in dealing with the situation and issued a statement, the gist of which was “it’s not really that big of a deal.” The company says it has implemented more security measures over the past year but didn’t give any details.

From an insurance perspective, it’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out considering the claims resulting from this breach aren’t necessarily financial in nature.  Personally I’m not one to snapchat strangers (or even acquaintances), but you’d have to imagine some users enjoy doing that.  Let’s face it: teenage kids aren’t the most discerning bunch out there.  Who knows how many of those acquaintances on the other end become full-on stalkers after a leak like this?

A data breach of this nature could potentially lead to property damage or bodily injury claims that would fall under a General Liability policy more than a Cyber Liability policy.   If a snapchat stalker really did chase down the targeted person and some Hollywood horror goes down, Snapchat could not only have a big bill to deal with, but also a ton of terrible PR.

We’ll see how this evolves!