Yo Messaging App Has Been Hacked

In the past couple of days, there has been an app that has been making headlines and it is called Yo. For those unfamiliar, Yo is an instant messaging app, although to call it that might be an exaggeration because all it does is that it sends a contact of your choosing a single message, “Yo,” which is also the only word that your friend can reply you with.

We guess it’s more of a poking sort of app rather than a messaging app, but despite its somewhat silly and novel-like nature, the app has actually received $1 million in funding, although what exactly will the money be used for remains to be seen. That being said, it seems that the app has already been hacked, according to a bunch of Georgia Tech students.

In an email sent to TechCrunch, “We can get any Yo user’s phone number (I actually texted the founder, and he called me back). We can spoof Yo’s from any users, and we can spam any user with as many Yo. We could also send any Yo user a push notification with any text we want (though we decided not to do that).”

They did not dive into any details of the hack, but it seems that there have been several Yo-related hacks lately, as evidence in this Instagram photo (pictured above) that seems to show that the app has been hacked. Other examples of how Yo can be potentially abused is detailed in this post where the Yo user managed to trick others into thinking he was Tesla’s Elon Musk.

Yo’s founder, Or Arbel, has since confirmed that the app was having “security issues” and that they are taking this very seriously. Arbel also goes on to state that they have brought in a security team to help deal with the issue, although he declined to divulge what exactly those issues are.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Apps, Hacking, Security