Security: A breach at a site that touts privacy

If you thought Snapchat was safe, think again, said Rich McCormick in TheVerge.com. When the photo-messaging service came onto the scene in 2011, its popularity quickly exploded, thanks to its flagship feature: self-destructing messages that claim to keep senders’ content private. But users hoping to preserve their Internet privacy and control access to their compromising comments and pictures may need to start looking elsewhere. Last week, hackers accessed and published the phone numbers and user names of more than 4.6 million North American Snapchat users. Seeking to teach Snapchat a lesson, the anonymous hackers’ site gives open access to “details of the photo-sharing app’s users alongside their location.”

You’d think protecting users’ privacy would be on everyone’s minds this year, said John Shinal in USA Today. Yet the Snapchat security hole that hackers exploited has been widely known since August. “The four-month lag time suggests protecting user data was not at the top of the to-do list of Snapchat’s own engineering hacking sessions.” This security breach should be a wake-up call—and not just for tech firms that risk alienating their users. Apps like Snapchat are especially popular among teenagers, who increasingly favor smaller social networks to keep their online activities away from parents’ prying eyes. Creating an online identity can, generally speaking, be healthy. But “parents should be aware of what networks their children are using and supervise their privacy and security settings.”

The big takeaway here, said Matt Peckham in Time.com, “is that your information is not secure online—no matter the company, no matter the safety claims.” It is time we all realized that security breaches have become inevitable. Just changing your password once your account is compromised isn’t enough. If you’re like most Internet users, you probably use the same user names and passwords across several accounts. That means you should take the “painful but critical” action of changing each one into something different. Once you’ve changed your passwords to something stronger—preferably some long “string of gobbledygook” that will give even sophisticated hackers a headache—store them somewhere safe. It’s reached the point where your memory alone can no longer suffice. I recommend an encrypted USB key that you can keep disconnected from your computer. Service providers like Snapchat should do better, but that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. “You can make yourself worlds safer by structuring your online footprint such that each breach is at least containable.”

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