It’s the must-have video chat app for many bored Brtis amid the coronavirus lockdown, but yesterday Houseparty was hit by rumours that it had been hacked.
The rumours indicated that Houseparty was to blame for accounts on PayPal, Netflix and Spotify getting hacked into.
Houseparty strongly denies the rumours, and tweeted that it has found ‘no evidence’ of a data breach.
A spokeswoman explained: “We've found no evidence to suggest a link between Houseparty and the compromises of other unrelated accounts.
"As a general rule, we suggest all users choose strong passwords when creating online accounts on any platform.
"Use a unique password for each account, and use a password generator or password manager to keep track of passwords, rather than using passwords that are short and simple.”
Now, Epic Games, the developer behind the popular app, is offering a $1 million (£810,750) reward for evidence that the app was the victim of a commercial smear campaign.
It tweeted: “We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumours 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.”
While Houseparty fiercely denies the claims that it was to blame accounts being hacked, the app isn’t without its risks.
UK charity Internet Matters has warned of the hidden dangers of the app, particularly for young users.
It explained: “Although the app is relatively secure as users can create ‘rooms’ and pick only specific names of the people to talk with, if a child doesn’t ‘lock’ their chat room and choose private settings, others can pop into the video chat.”
The content of the videos also isn’t screened, meaning there’s the possibility of inappropriate content appearing.
Internet Matters added: “The biggest risks are communicating with people children don’t know well, sexting, pictures and screenshots getting shared around, and spending too much time in virtual hangouts.”
