TikTok denies suffering a serious data breach. With the rumored TikTok hacek, have tons of user records on the platform been exposed?
TikTok Denies Suffering a Serious Data Breach
Social media platform TikTok has denied claims that hackers have stolen over two billion sensitive database records on its platform including user data and also platform source code. The rumors of a breach started with a post to an online hacking forum in which one of the users known as TheWest claimed to have TikTok server vulnerability in a bid to gain access to gigabytes of data.
TikTok, however, said that it has found no evidence of a security breach on its platform and that the records on the other hand have been removed from public sources. Analysis of the leaked files by cybersecurity experts in the field seems to corroborate the version of the story.
TikTok Has Been Under the Spotlight Ever Since It Rose To Fame in Western Markets
The social media platform is owned and also operated by ByteDance, a Chinese company. That being said, TikTok has been under the spotlight ever since it rose to fame in western markets back in 2019. And today, the short-form video platform has more attention per user than both Instagram and Facebook combined. And in the last five quarters, the app has been downloaded more times than any other social media platform and app.
Ex-US President Donald Trump back in 2020 tried to ban the platform which he at the time perceived as a threat to national security. And although the ban did not materialize, in its id to allay privacy and security concerns, parent company ByteDance agreed to move data that is related to US-based users of TikTok to servers operated by Oracle.
Oracle Is In The Process Of Auditing the Recommendation Algorithms of TikTok
Oracle, a US software company is also in the process of auditing the recommendation algorithms of the platform in order to ensure that they are not being manipulated for purposes of political nature by the Chinese communist party (CCP), which traditionally has exercised a significant level of control over companies that are based in china.
And irrespective of all these safety mechanisms, rumors of a large-scale data breach will thus heighten the focus on the platform once again in regards to its data management practices. TikTok on the other hand claims that the data published online was not exposed as a result of weakness in their security posture, nor does it relate to source code that is actively deployed in the backend of the platform.
TikTok’s Response to The News of Data Breach
“We have confirmed that the data samples in question are all publicly accessible and are not due to any compromise of TikTok Systems, networks, or databases,” the company said in a statement. “We do not believe users need to take any proactive actions, and we remain committed to the safety and security of our global community.”
