Snapchat is having one heck of a time trying to get its app’s security under control this year. In light of a hack at the start the new year, the “secretive” social application decided to release its new Snaptcha security feature that requires new users to find images containing the Snapchat logo from a series of nine square images.
This feature was very important for the company, as it tries to make sure all those registering for the Snapchat service are indeed human rather than robot. Unfortunately even this new security system was compromised, and it took “very little effort.”
The program to bypass the app’s security took only 30 minutes to build
Security researcher Steve Hickson used image analysis to design a program that would search for ghosts in the images and then select those images. This would enable the program to bypass the Snaptcha system completely, and Hickson claims it took only 30 minutes to get the code running. Quite possibly even more frightening, the program appears to be 100% accurate.
It seems Snapchat will have to try a little harder to implement security features that will keep its users’ information safe and keep the spam out. While it’s not certain what Snapchat plans to do — we haven’t received any replies for comment — it’s certainly going to be a tough year for the messaging app that popularized the disappearing photo.