Snapchat hack: Staff member accidentally reveals employee payroll data

The company says that none of its internal systems were hit and no user data was accessed

A video of the children fighting was allegedly shared on Snapchat (LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images)

Snapchat has been hacked and some of its employees most sensitive data has been stolen, it has said.

Despite being “a company that takes privacy and security seriously”, it said that one of its employees had fallen for a scam that involved a fake email sent by its CEO, Evan Spiegel. The employee didn’t realise that the email was fake and sent over payroll information about its staff, in doing so exposed that information to people outside of the company.

“The good news is that our servers were not breached, and our users’ data was totally unaffected by this,” the company said in a blog post announcing the hack. “The bad news is that a number of our employees have now had their identity compromised.

“And for that, we’re just impossibly sorry.”

The company said that it has confirmed that the attack was an isolated incident and that it has been passed on to the FBI. It has offered the affected employees free identity-theft insurance and monitoring, it said.

“When something like this happens, all you can do is own up to your mistake, take care of the people affected, and learn from what went wrong,” Snapchat wrote. “To make good on that last point, we will redouble our already rigorous training programs around privacy and security in the coming weeks.

“Our hope is that we never have to write a blog post like this again.”