For a couple of days, the news has been circulating online that Houseparty, a video calling app that has suddenly become very popular due to the COVID-19 epidemic, has been the victim of a cyber attack. Some people on social networks have reported violations in their accounts of other services, such as Netflix or eBay, linking these incidents to having recently installed Houseparty. From these rumors, the alleged attack suffered by Houseparty ended up on various international news sites, but the company has denied the reconstruction, ensuring that its servers have not been hacked and indeed offering a million dollars to those who can provide clues to discover who is behind what he called a “defamation campaign”.
We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty. We are offering a $ 1,000,000 bounty for the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign to bounty@houseparty.com.
– Houseparty (@houseparty) March 31, 2020
Houseparty has existed since 2016 and since June 2019 is owned by Epic Games, the company behind the hugely popular video game Fortnite. It is a simpler version of other popular video calling services, such as Skype or Zoom, and is aimed primarily at young or very young people, while also offering the ability to play games with friends you are connected with. It was already popular before – it had a collaboration agreement with the American host Ellen DeGeneres, to say – but it has become much more so after people from all over the world found themselves locked up at home due to the coronavirus. According to the Apptopia website, Houseparty's downloads have gone from an average of 130,000 a week before March to 2 million a week this month. news: it's free and arrives every Thursday at 6pm. To receive it, write your email address here and press the button below. Having read the information, I agree to send the Newsletter In the last two days, however, messages and posts have begun to circulate on social networks reporting alleged intrusions into personal accounts of services such as Netflix, eBay, Spotify and even bank accounts. While offering no real evidence, these reports linked the cyber breaches to Houseparty, assuming they occurred soon after signing up for the service. The reports were quickly picked up by discredited British tabloids, from the Sun to the Daily Mirror, generating widespread concern. Appeals and invitations to uninstall the app then appeared online, along with articles that specifically explained how to delete it forever. In Italy, a message circulated on WhatsApp reporting the alleged problem.
Within a few hours, Houseparty denied that user data had been stolen, ensuring that they were safe and that the passwords of the other services of the registered people had never been collected. According to the company, these rumors are the result of an industrial defamation campaign against it, and for this reason it has offered a million dollars to those who will be able to provide useful information to find out who is behind it.
Houseparty does not require access to other apps, but it does – like most services of this type – for phonebook contacts, Facebook contacts, microphone, camera and location. However, it has a particularity compared to other video calling apps, which has generated some concern for the safety of users: it allows you to access the video calls of your contacts even without an invitation, with all the unpleasant consequences that this feature can entail.
