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"Snapchat responded Thursday to news that broke New Year's Eve that more than 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers from the app's user base had been leaked by hackers. \nThe statement from Snapchat, which was published on the company's blog, confirms that no images or videos were leaked during the security breach. \nSee also: 6 Creative Hacks for Your Smartphone\nThe company also stated that a new version of the app will be released that will allow users to opt-out of the Find Friends feature that was the target of the attack. Snapchat offers the Find Friends feature so users can search the contact list on their phones for friends who may have Snapchat accounts. \nThe statement did not specify when the updated version of the app will be available, and a Snapchat spokesperson did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment. \nSnapchat's statement:\n\nWhen we first built Snapchat, we had a difficult time finding other friends that were using the service. We wanted a way to find friends in our address book that were also using Snapchat \u2014 so we created Find Friends. Find Friends is an optional service that asks Snapchatters to enter their phone number so that their friends can find their username. This means that if you enter your phone number into Find Friends, someone who has your phone number in his or her address book can find your username.\nA security group first published a report about potential Find Friends abuse in August 2013. Shortly thereafter, we implemented practices like rate limiting aimed at addressing these concerns. On Christmas Eve, that same group publicly documented our API, making it easier for individuals to abuse our service and violate our Terms of Use.\nWe acknowledged in a blog post last Friday that it was possible for an attacker to use the functionality of Find Friends to upload a large number of random phone numbers and match them with Snapchat usernames. On New Years Eve, an attacker released a database of partially redacted phone numbers and usernames. No other information, including Snaps, was leaked or accessed in these attacks.\nWe will be releasing an updated version of the Snapchat application that will allow Snapchatters to opt out of appearing in Find Friends after they have verified their phone number. We\u2019re also improving rate limiting and other restrictions to address future attempts to abuse our service.\nWe want to make sure that security experts can get ahold of us when they discover new ways to abuse our service so that we can respond quickly to address those concerns. The best way to let us know about security vulnerabilities is by emailing us: security@snapchat.com.\nThe Snapchat community is a place where friends feel comfortable expressing themselves and we\u2019re dedicated to preventing abuse. \n\nThe security issue was first spotted in August by a small security group called Gibson Security. Gibson then shared the API holes publicly last week. \nSnapchat responded to Gibson in a blog post last Friday, stating that the company would \"continue to make improvements to combat spam and abuse.\" On Tuesday, anonymous hackers took advantage of the holes in Snapchat's API and posted 4.6 million username and phone number combinations to the website SnapchatDB.\n\"You are downloading 4.6 million users' phone number information, along with their usernames,\" the hackers wrote at the top of the website. \"People tend to use the same username around the web so you can use this information to find phone number information associated with Facebook and Twitter accounts, or simply to figure out the phone numbers of people you wish to get in touch with.\"\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\nImage: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/01/02/snapchat-responds-security-breach/>