Snapchat CEO Interview On Security Hole

Snapchat CEO Interview On Security Hole: Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel appeared on the Today Show this morning to discuss the recent security breach that caused about 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers to be leaked publicly online on New Year’s Eve.

Snapchat released a statement Thursday night explaining how the hack happened, but failed to apologize for the breach. The company also didn’t mention if it had a way to fix the hole hackers used to gain access to all that personal data. Instead, Snapchat said it will release an update to its app soon that will let users turn off the “Find Friends” feature that uses your phone number to connect with other Snapchat users stored in your address book. It will also reduce the rate at which users can ping Snapchat’s servers with Find Friends, which could help limit such a massive leak from happening again.

Snapchat was warned about the security hole by a research group a few days before, but did nothing to address the problem. That’s when hackers took advantage and leaked millions of users’ private data.

In the interview (video below), Spiegel basically reiterates the company’s statement, saying hackers abused the Find Friends feature. He also said he thought Snapchat had “done enough” when warned about the security hole by the research firm.

We’ve reached out to Spiegel once and Snapchat’s PR boss Mary Ritti twice since Thursday night asking if Snapchat has a fix for the hole that caused the leak. Neither have responded.