Millions of Snapchat users could be at risk from hackers after a threat to publish private photos and videos on 4chan on Sunday (October 12) were reportedly announced today.
Images from the alleged prospective leak, which has already been dubbed a sequel to the 'Fappening', the publication of online private snaps of high profile celebrities, are said to have been taken from the third party Snapsave Android app.
They were then reportedly posted on a false competition website was then shut down, but not before thousands of people had downloaded the images.
There are currently conflicting reports the scandal is a hoax, but it bears eerie similarities to the 'Fappening' scandal, which breached the privacy Jennifer Lawrence, Doctor Who star Matt Smith, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Nick Hogan.
In that case, hackers were alleged to have accessed the pictures via Apple iCloud, although the company denied any security breach on its platform. That scandal has already sparked a threat of legal action in the US
A spokesman for Snapchat said: "We can confirm that Snapchat's servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks.
"Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users' security.
"We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed."
