Police issue guidance after spate of Snapchat hackings

Cyber officers are encouraging Snapchat users to update their security settings to protect them against hackers.

Nottinghamshire Police has seen a recent rise in accounts being compromised to extract illicit images and be used to blackmail victims.

To help reduce the chances of this happening, the force has created guidance to keep Snapchat accounts secure.

The guidance encourages people use different passwords for each account you have online, use stronger passwords using 3 random words, enable two-step verification (2SV) and remove any outdated personal information.

For more information on what a strong password looks like, how to manage passwords and enable 2-step verification, visit Cyber Aware - NCSC.GOV.UK.  

Cyber Protect Officer Kirsty Jackson said:

“We have seen a recent rise in Snapchat accounts being compromised to extract and share private images.

“Children and young adults in Nottingham have been the most targeted. In many cases, a friend has accessed the victim’s account – either by guessing the login information or because the victim has poor security.

“In other cases, the victim has logged into Snapchat on a friend’s device, which has then saved the login credentials. The friend has then gone on to find private images and videos in the account’s My Eyes Only feature, because the passcode was easy to guess. They’ve then gone on to threaten to share the images after falling out with the victim and deciding to bully them.

“We’ve also seen a rise in Snapchat accounts being hacked by organised cyber criminals for financial gain. This has seen hackers access a victim’s illicit images and threaten to leak them unless money is paid. The targeted age for this type of compromise is 20-40 years.

“To avoid the risk of being targeted, never share any image that you consider to be private using a social media platform.

“Also, never share login credentials with anyone else, no matter how trusted you believe them to be or login to your account using a friend’s device as their device can become trusted to your account and login credentials can save to their device.

"Please educate loved ones and children to help protect them from these common mistakes."

Kirsty said the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU) had compiled guidance on the issue to help people mitigate the risk of hackers accessing their social media accounts. 

The guidance and information on the dangers of Snapchat being used as a sexting platform can be found here: www.eastmidlandscybersecure.co.uk/post/the-dangers-of-snapchat-being-used-as-a-sexting-platform.