Twitter and Facebook are full of rumours that the Houseparty app is hacking people’s phones. Users posted to say that their Spotify, Netflix and mobile banking accounts had been hacked after receiving password-reset requests in their inboxes. And as they all blamed Houseparty, waves of people began deleting their accounts.
In fact so may left the app that Epic Games – who own Houseparty – decided that the whole thing must be a commercially-driven deliberate smear campaign. So convinced are they of this that they have offered a $1 million reward too anyone that can prove it.
The likelihood that Houseparty is being used to hack passwords is pretty slim though, given how much Houseparty can potentially earn its owners Epic Games. The app was recently reported to have gained over two million downloads in just one week, and in 2018 Epic Games earned around $3 billion – $2.4 billion of which came from just one game, the colossally successful Fortnite.
Given these numbers why would Epic need to hack user’s accounts via Houseparty – particularly given that the company already has access to over 300 million Fornite users whose accounts they could have hacked instead?
So stop panicking Houseparty users and enjoy the party! Oh and if you think you know something and could get that £1 million reward, here’s the email address to contact: bounty@houseparty.com