An iOS update recently exposed some of the company’s source code, Snap Inc confirmed to Motherboard on Wednesday.
GitHub is one of world’s leading software development platforms and is often considered as a safe haven for hackers and researchers to archive interesting code or data dumps. But sometimes affected companies do their best to remove exposed data from the code repository site.
Earlier this year, Snap Inc the company behind Snapchat- a popular social media platform has released some of the source code of the network’s iOS app. Snap confirmed to Motherboard on Tuesday.
After someone stole that released code on GitHub, Snap told GitHub to remove the data with a copyright act request.
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“An iOS update in May exposed a small amount of our source code and we were able to identify the mistake and rectify it immediately.”
A Snap spokesperson told Motherboard in an email. “We discovered that some of this code had been posted online and it has been subsequently removed. This did not compromise our application and had no impact on our community.”
x0rz, who is an independent security researcher, tweeted about the takedown on Tuesday, pointing to a copy of the request itself.
“What would be the best solution for the alleged infringement? Are there specific changes the other person can make other than removal?” one section reads.
“NO, THIS SHOULD BE REMOVED BECAUSE IT IS ALL LEAKED SOURCE CODE,” the reply from a Snap employee read.
After the take-down of code from GitHub, Snap enforced Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law businesses often use to protect their intellectual property. In February, Apple used a DMCA request to remove some of its own code from GitHub.
One of the GitHub repository sites previously hosting the Snapchat code now says “We have disabled public access to the repository.” It appears some researchers are trading the data privately, however.