TikTok refutes allegations of a massive security breach

The alleged hack compromised account details of over 2bn TikTok users

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TikTok has reportedly suffered a data breach which includes 790GB of user information, although the claims have been found to be inconclusive.

The video platform’s users have been recommended to change their password and enable two-factor authentication by BeeHive CyberSecurity, the researchers who discovered the leak.

Researchers have shared screenshots of the files on Twitter, which include “record_paypal_order” or “tiktok_author_stats”. One researcher, AgainstTheWest, found that the company stored all its internal backend source code on one Alibaba Cloud instance using a weak password.

The researcher also claimed to have discovered 790GB of user information tables from the database, with current user entries at 2.05 billion, they revealed on a database forum.

“Considering the entries are from all over the world, it is unlikely we will sell or release this,” posted AgainstTheWest. “Lastly, this data contains a lot of under-aged people. Releasing such information, along with the data that is being stored without the user’s knowledge is so dire that we think it could spark something dangerous.”

However, Web security consultant Troy Hunt inspected some of the files and found that it was all publicly accessible data so could have been constructed without a data breach

“This is so far pretty inconclusive; some data matches production info, albeit publicly accessible info,” Hunt wrote on Twitter. “Some data is junk, but it could be non-production or test data. It’s a bit of a mixed bag so far.”

“TikTok prioritises the privacy and security of our users’ data,” a TikTok spokesperson told IT Pro. “Our security team investigated these claims and found no evidence of a security breach.”

This comes after the head of the FCC called on Apple and Google to remove the platform from their app stores over its pattern of surreptitious data practices in June 2022. Commissioner Brendan Carr said that TikTok is available to millions of US citizens and it collects vast troves of sensitive data about them. He underlined that its own by ByteDance, which is “beholden” to the Communist Party of China and required to comply with the government’s surveillance demands.

Ⓒ Future Publishing

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