Just a few days after receiving $1 million in funding, The Yo app has been hacked by three students from Georgia Tech.
App founder Or Arbel confirmed the security issues that Yo is currently addressing, hiring a specialist security team to resolve the problem.
Yo is an app that has just one purpose: sending a message containing only the word "Yo." Users have a list of contacts on the app, and a tap on the name of the contact sends the message to that person, with an audio file saying the word out loud.
"People think it's just an app that says 'Yo.' But it's really not," Arbel said. "We like to call it context-based messaging. You understand by the context what is being said."
Arbel finished creating and coding the app in just eight hours, which could be a telltale sign of why it was hacked.
"We can get any Yo user's phone number (I actually texted the founder, and he called me back.) We can spoof Yos from any users, and we can spam any user with as many Yos as we want. We could also send any Yo user a push notification with any text we want (though we decided not to do that,)" said the group of hackers to TechCrunch.
However, there is not that much for Yo users to worry about. Since the only purpose of the app is sending "Yo" messages to your contacts, there isn't much that the hackers can gain from taking over the app. The hackers will have your phone number and manipulate the app, but they won't be able to get into the other parts of your phone. If you are being bombarded with "Yo" messages, simply deleting the app will solve all your problems.
Receiving immense popularity and popping up everywhere in Twitter, the app reached the rank as the third most downloaded free app for the iOS. The $1 million investment it received came from a group that is led by image-sharing app Mobil CEO Moshe Hogeg.
Aside from the takeover by the Georgia Tech students, there seems to be several other security issues for the app. There is a Vine video circulating that displays the app playing a part of the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, instead of the "Yo" sound that it normally does, most likely signifying another breach into the app's code.
"Some of the stuff has been fixed and some we are still working on. We are taking this very seriously," Arbel said.
