Recent PR Issues: Snapchat

In today's society, social media is king.  The world seems to revolve around sites like facebook, twitter, and instagram.  The social media app Snapchat also falls into that category with over 30 million active users reported back in December.  Snapchat, an extremely popular app allows people to send pictures/videos with short messages to each other with a set time that the picture can be viewed.  The app is hugely popular amongst high school and college students, 4.6 million of whom have now had their information stolen in a recent cyber attack.

 That's right, 4.6 million people have had either their phone number, address book (friends and family's numbers), or username stolen from them earlier in January.  The kicker is that all the information was floating freely in cyberspace for anyone to access.   Snapchat isn't the first tech company to experience a security breach, (Sony is a notable example) and has tried to keep in good graces with the public.

The company tried to "get ahead of the problem" by acknowledging that they had an issue with the address book function of the app, and had hired a third party cyber security company to fix the problem.  Three days later the leak became public and has posed a real problem for Snapchat's public image.  Snapchat is continuing to work on the issue, is apologizing for the increased amount of spam users may be experiencing due to the data breach, and most importantly keeping in touch with concerned members through blog posts.

 In all, Snapchat has done an amiable job with the cards they were dealt and will continue to work towards improving the issue.  They also did a good job getting ahead of the issue, rather than an outside source coming forth (implying a potential cover up.) Links are attached if anyone is interested in reading further.

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/15917.aspx
http://www.prnewsonline.com/water-cooler/2014/01/02/snapchat-hack-offers-pr-crisis-lesson-get-ahead-of-the-story/