The Snapchat breach that led to millions of user names and phone numbers posted on the Web shows how a startup's priorities of growth and features can sometimes lead to weak security, experts say.
While the Snapchat break-in was seen as avoidable, security experts had less to say about the hacking of Skype's official blog and social network accounts, saying not enough details were available. Both attacks occurred this week.
Snapshot vulnerabilities exploited
With Snapchat, the mobile photo-sharing service made several errors in its use of cryptography and key management, according to Zak Dehlawi, senior security engineer for Security Innovation. Those mistakes led to the perpetrators posting 4.6 million user names and phone numbers on a Web site called SnapchatDB.info. The site has been taken down.
On Christmas Eve, Gibson Security, based in New Zealand, posted a lengthy explanation of the vulnerabilities it found in Snapchat security after notifying the company of the problems.
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