Snapchat users have been advised to update their security settings to stop hackers using private images to blackmail them. Nottinghamshire Police has seen a recent rise in accounts being compromised to extract private images which are then used to blackmail victims - with young people using the photos to bully former friends.
Cyber Protect Officer Kirsty Jackson, of Nottinghamshire Police, 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.
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"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."
The force's cyber experts said they had also seen a rise in Snapchat accounts being hacked by organised cyber criminals for financial gain, with the criminals targeting those between people between 20 to 40-years-old. These hackers have accessed victim’s images and threatened to leak them unless money is paid.
To help reduce the chances of this happening, Nottinghamshire Police has created guidance to keep Snapchat accounts secure. The guidance encourages people to 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account you have online, use stronger passwords using 3 random words, enable two-step verification (2SV) and remove any outdated personal information.
Officers advised people to 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," expert Ms Jackson added.
