The owner of the app Houseparty is offering a $1m reward for evidence the company was the victim of a commercial smear campaign.
It comes after online rumours began to circulate that downloading the app led to users being hacked.
In a statement, the company said there was "no evidence" to back up those claims.
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We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty. We are offering a $1,000,000 bounty for the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign to bounty@houseparty.com.
— Houseparty (@houseparty) March 31, 2020
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, Houseparty has become one of the most downloaded apps across the world.
The app allows users to have group video chats and play games virtually.
Its popularity surged from around 130,000 downloads a week in February to over 2m a week following the 'lockdown'.
Rumours emerged yesterday on social media that apps such as Netflix and Spotify had been hacked following the downloading of the app. Several screenshots on Twitter showed accounts locked out of applications like Netflix, Spotify and even bank accounts after installing Houseparty.
All Houseparty accounts are safe - the service is secure, has never been compromised, and doesn’t collect passwords for other sites.
— Houseparty (@houseparty) March 30, 2020
Epic Games, who own Houseparty, has not said why it believes Houseparty was the victim of a smear attack but promised to pay the first person to provide evidence of this.
In a statement, they said: "We've found no evidence to suggest a link between Houseparty and the compromises of other unrelated accounts.
"As a general rule, we suggest all users choose strong passwords when creating online accounts on any platform."
Houseparty does not access third-party apps like Netflix or Spotify, though it does ask for access to user's contacts and connections on Facebook and Snapchat.
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