Yo, the World's Dumbest App, Hacked by Three College Students
In what may go down as the moment the cult of disruption finally began innovating itself to death once and for all, Yo, an app that does almost nothing, received over $1 million from actual investors recently. Days after its big debut this week, it was hacked by three college students.
The hackers — roommates at Georgia Tech — say they're able to reveal the phone number of any Yo user as well as send spoof messages. They told TechCrunch:
The student emailed TechCrunch detailing what he alleges is the results of the hack: "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)."
Yo founder Or Abel confirmed the one-note messaging app was "having security issues," and hopes to have them resolved within a few hours.
"Some of the stuff has been fixed and some we are still working on. We are taking this very seriously."
Confused about why an app with less functionality than most beepers attracted such a hubbub in the first place? Just remember what Moshe Hogeg, who gave $200,000 of his own money to help finance it, told our own Sam Biddle. Repeat it like a mantra if you have to: "Yo is more than a yo." Of course it is.