{“lastseen”:”2026-02-10T14:05:30″,”description”:”Fresh off a breathless Super Bowl Sunday, we’re less thrilled to bring you this week’s Weirdo Wednesday. Two stories caught our eye, both involving men who crossed clear lines and invaded women’s privacy online.\\n\\nLast week, 27-year-old Kyle Svara of Oswego, Illinois admitted to hacking women’s Snapchat accounts across the US. Between May 2020 and February 2021, Svara harvested account security codes from 571 victims, leading to confirmed unauthorized access to at least 59 accounts.\\n\\nRather than attempting to break Snapchat’s robust encryption protocols, Svara targeted the account owners themselves with social engineering. \\n\\nAfter gathering phone numbers and email addresses, he triggered Snapchat\u2019s legitimate login process, which sent six-digit security codes directly to victims\u2019 devices. Posing as Snapchat support, he then sent more than 4,500 anonymous messages via a VoIP texting service, claiming the codes were needed to \u201cverify\u201d or \u201csecure\u201d the account.\\n\\nSvara showed particular interest in Snapchat\u2019s My Eyes Only feature\u2014a secondary four-digit PIN meant to protect a user\u2019s most sensitive content. By persuading victims to share both codes, he bypassed two layers of security without touching a single line of code. He walked away with private material, including nude images.\\n\\nSvara didn’t do this solely for his own kicks. He marketed himself as a hacker-for-hire, advertising on platforms like Reddit and offering access to specific accounts in exchange for money or trades.\\n\\nSelling his services to others was how he got found out. Although Svara stopped hacking in early 2021, his legal day of reckoning followed the 2024 sentencing of one of his customers: Steve Waithe, a former track and field coach who worked at several high-profile universities including Northeastern. Waithe paid Svara to target student athletes he was supposed to mentor.\\n\\nSvara also went after women in his home area of Plainfield, Illinois, and as far away as Colby College in Maine. \\n\\nHe now faces charges including identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, and making false statements to law enforcement about child sex abuse material. Sentencing is scheduled for May 18.\\n\\n## **How to protect your Snapchat account**\\n\\nNever send someone your login details or secret codes, even if you think you know them. \\n\\nThis is also a good time to talk about passkeys.\\n\\nPasskeys let you sign in without a password, but unlike multi-factor authentication, passkeys are cryptographically tied to your device, and can’t be phished or forwarded like one-time codes. Snapchat supports them, and they offer stronger protection than traditional multi-factor authentication, which is increasingly susceptible to smart phishing attacks. \\n\\n## Bad guys with smart glasses\\n\\nUnfortunately, hacking women’s social media accounts to steal private content isn’t new. But predators will always find a way to use smart tech in nefarious ways. Such is the case with new generations of ‘smart glasses’ powered by AI.\\n\\nThis week, CNN published stories from women who believed they were having private, flirtatious interactions with strangers\u2014only to later discover the men were recording them using camera-equipped smart glasses and posting the footage online.\\n\\nThese clips are often packaged as \u201crizz\u201d videos\u2014short for \u201ccharisma\u201d\u2014where so-called manfluencers film themselves chatting up women in public, without consent, to build followings and sell \u201ccoaching\u201d services.\\n\\nThe glasses, sold by companies like Meta, are supposed to be used for recording only with consent, and often display a light to show that they’re recording. In practice, that indicator is easy to hide. \\n\\nWhen combined with AI-powered services to identify people, as researchers did in 2024, the possibilities become even more chilling. We’re unaware of any related cases coming to court, but suspect it’s only a matter of time.\\n\\n* * *\\n\\n**We don ‘t just report on scams\u2014we help detect them**\\n\\nCybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we\u2019ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!”,”published”:”2026-02-10T13:28:45″,”modified”:”2026-02-10T13:28:45″,”type”:”malwarebytes”,”title”:”Man tricked hundreds of women into handing over Snapchat security codes”,”source”:””,”references”:””,”id”:”MALWAREBYTES:72F5053B7ED8B4CF13F93075BCB8F482″,”bulletinFamily”:”blog”,”cwe”:null,”cvelist”:[],”sourceData”:””,”sourceHref”:””,”cvss”:{“score”:0,”severity”:”NONE”,”vector”:”NONE”,”version”:”NONE”},”cvss2″:{},”cvss3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””,”cvssV3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””}},”href”:”https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/blog\/privacy\/2026\/02\/man-tricked-hundreds-of-women-into-handing-over-snapchat-security-codes”,”category_name”:”News”,”post_link”:””,”product”:””,”version”:””,”vendor”:””,”ai_description”:””,”ai_severity”:””,”ai_vendor”:””,”ai_product”:””,”ai_version”:””,”ai_score”:0}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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