Snapchat Vulnerability Can Lead to iPhone Denial-of-Service Attacks

A vulnerability in the Snapchat app opens the iPhone up to denial-of-service attacks that can cause the device to freeze and crash, according to cyber security researcher Jamie Sanchez [Google Translation] (via The Los Angeles Times).

A weakness in the app’s system can allow a hacker to send thousands of messages to a Snapchat user in seconds, which can cause a crash that requires a hard reset to fix. Tokens generated by the app used to verify user identity can be reused by hackers to send a flood of messages.

By reusing old tokens, hackers can send massive amounts of messages using powerful computers. This method could be used by spammers to send messages in mass quantities to numerous users, or it could be used to launch a cyber attack on specific individuals, [Sanchez] said.

Sanchez demonstrated the flaw for The Los Angeles Times, sending a reporter 1,000 messages within five seconds in a denial-of-service attack, which caused the reporter's iPhone to freeze until it restarted.

The security researcher declined to contact Snapchat with his findings as he believes the startup "has no respect for the cyber security research community" after ignoring previous app vulnerability reports.

Snapchat has faced multiple problems as its private messaging app has grown in popularity, including vulnerabilities that allowed users to bypass screenshot notifications and a recent security breach that compromised the user names and phone numbers of more than 4.6 million customers, which Snapchat was warned about ahead of time by a security group.

When asked about this particular vulnerability, Snapchat said it was unaware of the problem but interested in learning more.