DisclosureLens
Social EngineeringTechnologyInformationPhishingBECEmployee Data InvolvedGovernment IDIdentity (basic)EmploymentFinancial accountMediumContained

Snapchat

bd_6d7574715fffc1be · schema v1 · pii pii-v1

Severity

Medium

Discovered

Feb 26, 2016

Filed

Mar 4, 2016

To disclose

7 days

Affected

Not disclosed

Confidence

64%
Full breach record for Snapchat

Snapchat, Inc. disclosed that its payroll department was targeted by an email phishing scam on February 26, 2016, where a scammer impersonated the CEO to request employee information. The incident resulted in the improper external disclosure of payroll data for current and former employees, including names, SSNs, wages, and benefit details. No internal systems were breached. Snapchat reported the incident to the FBI and offered two years of identity theft monitoring and insurance to affected employees.

California clockDiscovered Feb 26, 2016Notified Mar 1, 20164d CA 60-day OK7 days discovery → filing

Incident timeline

discovery → filing · 7 days

Feb 26, 2016

Begins

Feb 26, 2016

Discovered

Mar 4, 2016

Filed

vs. sector median

17 wks faster

Tracked as a single-filing incident — the only disclosure on record for this event so far.ConfirmedView incident

Evidence ladder

Leak-site claim

Attacker assertion only. Establishes: claim date, group, alleged victim.

Press / market report

Unlocks: incident narrative, operational impact. Still no compliance clock.

State AG / regulator filingThis record

Unlocks: discovery date, data types, affected count, compliance clock.

SEC 8-K / victim statement

Unlocks: materiality, stated response, full audit trail. Ceiling removed.