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Thousands of children, some as young as 10, are facing the horror of seeing nude pictures of themselves posted on the net.

Message boards on a notorious website called 4Chan have been inundated with details of the “The Snappening”.

Hackers claim they have managed to break in to another image-saving service that allows users of Snapchat to store pictures received before they vanish.

As proof, they have reportedly posted pictures allegedly taken from this third party app but have since deleted them.

Half of Snapchat users are aged between 13 and 17, and there are grave fears that tens of thousands of leaked images will be of under-age UK children who have been persuaded or bullied into sending naked shots of themselves.

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Because Snapchat only produces temporary images on the receiver’s phone, the service has been used by teenagers to flash indecent images to fellow account holders, never suspecting the shots would be captured.

Hackers have bragged that 200,000 pictures, will be released in days.

Worryingly the images are to be released in a searchable database making it easier for pictures to be found and identified.

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Children as young as 10 are sending and receiving sexual pictures through Snapchat, said researchers.

The NSPCC found as many as 40% of young children have been swapping sexual images.

Schoolgirls in the UK are increasingly becoming victims of a craze dubbed “porn to order” after being duped into sending rude selfies.

Apps such as Snap Save allow those who receive the pictures to save the image. But they deny being hacked.

Snapchat’s US owners insist their servers “were never breached”.

They said: “Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practise we expressly prohibit in our terms of use because they compromise users’ security.”

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What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a free messaging app where users can send photos and videos to their friends.

The images, called Snaps, appear on the recipient’s phone for a short set time limit of between one and 10 seconds before they disappear.

As the Snaps are temporary – unless the recipient takes a screen grab – it is often used for sexting.

What is 4Chan?

4Chan is a bulletin board where users can post images and comments on topics from “hardcore” to “Pokemon”.

It has a main board called “Random” with few rules, meaning illicit material – such as hacked photos – is often uploaded.

Most users are anonymous.