It took a whole week, (and plenty of arm twisting from the PR department one imagines) but Snapchat finally apologized for the security breach that exposed nearly 4.3 million usernames and telephone numbers to the public.
The company snuck in a teeny tiny apology at the bottom of a blog post detailing what it had done to prevent future hackings.
“Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.”
Snapchat had steadfastly refused to admit fault or any semblance of contrition in the week that followed the hacking, even though the company had been warned it could happen by a security firm. That hubris resulted in plenty of lambasting in the press, not so much for the hacking, but for the casual attitude Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel appeared to have.
It wasn’t a great week for Spiegel generally. After a Forbes profile portrayed him as being less than humble when it came to his communications with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Spiegel quickly denied parts of the article, only to have Forbes publish a recording of the interview, proving that he had in fact exaggerated his version of the encounter.
Spiegel appeared on the Today Show with Carson Daly for damage control, but even then, played down any admission of guilt, again with a conspicuous lack of an apology.
“I believe at the time we thought we had done enough,” Spiegel told Daly in an exclusive interview. “But I think in a business like this and a business that is moving so quickly, if you spend your time looking backwards, you’re just going to kill yourself.”
You can watch the entire video here:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
