Hive Social is Back Online, Two Weeks After Security Issues Shut It Down

Hive Social is back online, two weeks after its creators abruptly shut the service down in order to address security issues.

The app, which is best described as a combination of Twitter and Instagram, has been around for several years but recently saw a huge surge in signups over the last month and a half amid escalating issues at both Instagram and Twitter. Instagram has been heavily criticized for veering too far away from its roots as a photo-sharing app while many users are trying to leave Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover of the app in October.

In late November, Hive Social revealed it had reached a million users, and upwards of 250,000 new signups overnight, which caused the app to soar to the top spot in the social media category on the U.S. App Store for a time.

But two weeks ago, the app’s founders shut down the social network’s servers in response to security concerns raised by researchers who discovered several critical vulnerabilities on the app. They say that even after reporting them to Hive, several remained unfixed.

“Fixing these issues will require temporarily turning off our servers for a couple of days,” the company said on December 2.

Now, 14 days later, the app’s servers have been restored and users have been sent upwards of three push notifications to let them know it is back online. That said, the app doesn’t appear to have a way for Hive to explain what has changed, even when tapping on those notifications, and the company has no blog or news platform on its website either.

Some users who have tried out the app since its relaunch have reported that it is overall operating faster, but there are still multiple bugs, including some reporting that profile pages are appearing blank or that nothing loads for them at all.

PetaPixel reached out to Hive Social to ask for specifics on security and privacy changes, but did not immediately receive a response.