Snapchat Hacked By Fruit Smoothie Enthusiast

If one of your friends randomly sends you a photo of a smoothie on Snapchat, don’t go to the URL on the picture. It’s a hack that has affected several accounts, as a Twitter search shows.

Wired writer Joe Brown was one of the users who suffered a Snapchat fruiting. A Snapchat spokesperson told him that the startup did not see any evidence of “brute-force tactics,” and that someone had likely gotten a hold of his email and password and accessed his account on the first try. Snapchat told us:

“Yesterday a small number of our users experienced a spam incident where unwanted photos were sent from their accounts. Our security team deployed additional measures to secure accounts. We recommend using unique and strong passwords to prevent abuse.”

The spam looks like this (once again, don’t go to the URL; it sells weight-loss supplements, if you really must know).

This is the latest of several high-profile hacking incidencts Snapchat has suffered. Back in December, millions of users’ phone numbers were exposed by a group that wanted to call attention to Snapchat’s security flaws.

In response, Snapchat came up with “Snap-tchas,” but hackers found workarounds within a few hours. A few days ago, a security researcher found a vulnerability that could allow hackers to crash your phone through Snapchat.

While Snapchat’s security flaws have been getting a lot of attention recently, it’s worth noting that you should try not to use the same usernames and passwords for multiple sites and apps, and be very wary of third-party services that ask for your Snapchat information.