Snapchat Employees Abused Data Access to Spy on Users

guest · May 23, 2019

Snapchat Employees Abused Data Access to Spy on Users
May 23, 2019
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...yees-abused-data-access-spy-on-users-snaplion

Several departments inside social media giant Snap have dedicated tools for accessing user data, and multiple employees have abused their privileged access to spy on Snapchat users, Motherboard has learned.
[...] behind the products we use everyday there are people with access to highly sensitive customer data, who need it to perform essential work on the service. But, without proper protections in place, those same people may abuse it to spy on users' private information or profiles.

One of the internal tools that can access user data is called SnapLion, according to multiple sources and the emails.
SnapLion provides "the keys to the kingdom," one of the former employees who described the abuse of accessing user data said.

The former senior employee did not deny employees abused their data access, and stopped responding to messages asking whether abuse occurred.
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"For the normal user, they need to understand that anything they're doing that is not encrypted is, at some point, available to humans," Alex Stamos, the former chief information security officer at Facebook and now a Stanford adjunct professor, said in a phone call, talking about the threat of malicious insiders at tech giants in general.
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guest · May 24, 2019

Snapchat: Claims of Employees Spying "Inaccurate"
May 24, 2019
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/snapchat-claims-of-employees-1/

In response to news that multiple Snapchat employees abused their privileged access to spy on users, reported by Motherboard, the social media platform said the allegations are false.

Whether accurate or not, "the incident highlights the risks posed by insider threats. Most of the employees are busy doing their day-to-day jobs but a handful have malicious intent thus causing harm to the organizations they work for,” said Mayank Choudhary, senior vice president at ObserveIT.

“Any perception that employees might be spying on our community is highly troubling and wholly inaccurate,” a Snapchat spokesperson wrote in an email to Infosecurity.
"Protecting privacy is paramount at Snap. We keep very little user data, and we have robust policies and controls to limit internal access to the data we do have, including data within tools designed to support law enforcement. [...]"
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