Snapchat apologises for influx of spam - blames increased popularity

Latest bad news from the astonishingly popular app follows a New Years Day hack that publicized data belonging to 4.6m users

(Getty Images)

The bad news for Snapchat continues this month, with the self-destructing messaging app forced to apologize this week for an influx of spam received by users.

Earlier on this month the app was hit by a hack that revealed the usernames and phone numbers of more than 4.6 million users.

Although this wasn't an entirely malicious attack - the anonymous perpetrators said they were simply trying to make public the dangers of trusting apps with your data - Snapchat was still accused of neglecting security.

Now the app has asked for patience from its users as it tackles the increase in spam. The company says that this is nothing to do with the hack earlier in the month but is simply a side-effect of the apps’ increasing popularity.

“We’ve heard some complaints over the weekend about an increase in Snap Spam on our service,” said Snapchat in an online blog post.

“We want to apologize for any unwanted Snaps and let you know our team is working on resolving the issue. As far as we know, this is unrelated to the Find Friends issue we experienced over the holidays.”

In order to tackle the problem, they advise users to adjust their settings so that the only people they can receive snaps from are those already on their friend list.

Read more: The 23-year- old Snapchat co-founder and CEO who said no to a $3bn offer from Facebook