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Edward Smith/EMPICS Entertainment

Snapchat employee sent personal details to scammer they thought was their boss

The company said that no user information was revealed because of the incident.

SNAPCHAT HAS APOLOGISED to its employees after a phishing scam revealed personal information about some of them.

The company said that user data was not compromised and its servers weren’t breached. However, some payroll information concerning its employees were revealed.

“We’re a company that takes privacy and security seriously. So it’s with real remorse – and embarrassment - that one of our employees fell for a phishing scam and revealed some payroll information about our employees,” said Snapchat in a blog post.

The bad news is that a number of our employees have now had their identity compromised. And for that, we’re just impossibly sorry.

A phishing scam normally sees someone impersonate a person or organisation, asking people to update personal information like passwords, credit card details or bank account numbers.

They are usually directed to a site where they’re asked to enter in details where they’re collected and used for nefarious purposes.

The LA Times says that one of the company’s payroll employees ended up sending information to a person pretending to be its CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel.

When the employee realised the mistake, they emailed Spiegel who didn’t recognise the email. After it was confirmed to be an isolated incident, the FBI was contacted and are now investigating the incident.

Snapchat CEO Employee details were revealed after someone pretended to be CEO Evan Spiegel. AP Photo / Jae C. Hong AP Photo / Jae C. Hong / Jae C. Hong

The company said that it has contacted those who have been affected, both current and past employees, and offered them two years of free identity-theft insurance and monitoring.

The app, which sees its users view more than 7 billion videos per day, has not been affected by the incident but the company said it’s “redoubling its already rigorous training” around privacy and security in the coming weeks.

When something like this happens, all you can do is own up to your mistake, take good care of the people affected, and learn from what went wrong… Our hope is that we never have to write a blog post like this again.

Phishing is one of the most popular methods of obtaining data about companies and employees. A recent report from RSA Insurance Ireland found that phishing attacks were responsible for 70% of security incidents in businesses.

Read: Apple changed its site’s code so ‘click’ wouldn’t look like something else >

Read: Microsoft gives up on its ambitious plan to bring Android apps to Windows >

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    Mute Elaine Murray
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    Jan 27th 2014, 9:45 AM

    It’s such a tragedy but unfortunately these kids were swimming in the crocodiles territory. There were multiple warning signs around the area warning of the dangers, and the park rangers had gone to these communities educating the people about the dangers of crocodiles. Hopefully they find this child’s body for the families sake, a horrible tragedy all round.

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    Mute Some Feen
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    Jan 27th 2014, 10:03 AM

    I hope it was quick and painless, horrible way to go

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    Mute Kieran O'dwyer
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    Jan 27th 2014, 10:14 AM

    I have an Aussie (18) living with me at the moment. She tells me they grow up with all the dangers (sharks, killer jellyfish, killer snakes, killer spiders, etc) and kinda know what to look out for. I read somewhere that 8 of the top 10 most dangerous animals are in Oz. It doesn’t prevent accidents always of course and my thoughts are with his family at this awful time.

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    Mute Jason Naughton
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    Jan 27th 2014, 10:01 AM

    I’m almost physically sick thinking about the terror faced by the kids here. Warnings aside it’s a terrible tragedy.

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    Mute Jill :D
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    Jan 27th 2014, 9:41 AM

    Surely there was warning signs around since it was a national park?

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    Mute Andy O'hAilin
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    Jan 27th 2014, 9:53 AM

    I’m living there at the moment. There are only signs for places where you are allowed to swim as the crocs are so common. Young kids just act so casual to the threat

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Jan 27th 2014, 10:24 AM

    Kakadu is absolutely huge, can’t have warning signs around every bilabong

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    Mute hard yaka
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    Jan 27th 2014, 11:22 AM

    Out of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world Australia has 10. I swam in kakadu myself its easy to sit here and talk about signs but your talking about a park bigger than some countries

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    Mute lunadoran
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    Jan 27th 2014, 1:52 PM

    Yea you can swim in the areas where there are no crocs and there’s a sign up saying its safe to swim….person above said this was one of the unsafe areas…

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    Mute Gary Mason™
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    Jan 27th 2014, 11:13 AM

    What about the 2 innocent crocodiles killed in the aftermath?

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    Mute Andrew Cosgrave
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    Jan 27th 2014, 2:18 PM

    Swimming in Darwin is a huge no no. We were stoppedby a homeless man on the beach because we would have been attacked. Thought all the locals knew this stuff. Poor kid

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    Mute Gary Mason™
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    Jan 27th 2014, 10:09 AM

    I wonder what his ransom will be?

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    Mute AICS (Steve Tracey)
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    Jan 27th 2014, 6:46 PM

    Gary
    Not funny at all. Keep such comments and ideas to yourself.

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    Mute AICS (Steve Tracey)
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    Jan 27th 2014, 6:48 PM

    Aics
    Comment also applies to those green thumbing Gary’s comment unless by accident

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    Mute Ball Bag
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    Jan 28th 2014, 12:14 AM

    Steve, no one gives a f uck what you think.

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    Mute Spud Jones
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    Jan 28th 2014, 1:26 AM

    Good one ball bag, have you got one for blacks, tinkers, paddys, Jews?

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