LUSARAP

The firm warned users to check their security settings, but admitted spam was becoming a major problem for users.

The firm told customers to be patient as it tackles the problem - which is says is a consequence of its huge growth in popularity.

However, it says the problem is not related to a major hack of the site which revealed 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers.

We’ve heard some complaints over the weekend about an increase in Snap Spam on our service, the firm said in a blog post.

We want to apologize for any unwanted Snaps and let you know our team is working on resolving the issue.

As far as we know, this is unrelated to the Find Friends issue we experienced over the holidays.

The firm also admits it is struggling to solve the problem.

While we expect to minimize spam, it is the consequence of a quickly growing service.

To help prevent spam from entering your feed, you can adjust your settings to determine who can send you Snaps. We recommend “Only My Friends” :)

We appreciate your patience and we’ll keep you posted.

CEO Evan Spiegel personally denied the connection in a tweet.

Earlier this month he came out in defence of his firm following a serious security breach involving the apps Find Friend tool.

In an interview with U.S-based Today, the 23-year-old admitted he was under the impression the company had done enough to resolve security issues with the app, but added: If you spend your time looking backwards, youre just going to kill yourself.

Security experts claim Spiegel was warned months ago the app had a security hole, yet failed to respond effectively, which is being blamed for the leak of 4.6million user details on Wednesday.

In response, the firm has announced plans to release an updated version of the app that lets users opt out of the feature.

The Find Friend tool was developed to help Snapchatters find their friends usernames by using their mobile numbers.

According to Spiegel, this tool was abused by someone to find usernames of people that weren’t their friends.

He added that the person targeted had 4.6million friends in their address book, and the hackers used this to find phone numbers.

Previous reports have claimed Spiegel was one of the users affected by the hack, and this recent statement adds weight to the rumours it may even been his friends list that was compromised.

However, this has not been confirmed.

The tool is already optional, but the app update will make it possible for users to explicitly opt out of using the feature.

On Christmas Day Australian security research group, Gibson Security revealed details of a security hole affecting the Snapchat site.