Hacker may have exposed personal data of over 1 billion TikTok users: Report
The hacking claims surfaced at a time when Microsoft issued a warning related to high-security vulnerability in TikTok's Android app which could have enabled the hackers to compromise the user accounts, Independent report stated.
Video sharing platform TikTok might have been a victim of a cyber attack. The hackers might have claimed to have accessed data of more than a billion TikTok users, British website Independent reported.
The reports pertaining to an alleged data breach on TikTok surfaced on a hacking forum over the weekend, with the cyber attackers claiming to have exploited an insecure server which reportedly contained personal information of TikTok users.
The hacking claims surfaced at a time when Microsoft issued a warning related to high-security vulnerability in the video platform's Android app which could have enabled the hackers to compromise the user accounts, Independent report stated.
A user posted on Breach Forums, a hacking forum, said it will decide if the data is to be sold or released to the public, adding that 1.37 billion entries related to data of under-aged people have been pulled.
Troy Hunt, a leading security researcher which uses the Have I Been Pwned data breach service, said it analysed 237 MB sample of the files which were listed on the forum. According to report, Hunt was not able to verify the legitimacy of the hack, while claiming that the data was already in public.
"This is so far pretty inconclusive; some data matches production info, albeit publicly accessible info. Some data is junk, but it could be non-production or test data. It's a bit of a mixed bag so far," Hunt tweeted on Tuesday.
However, a TikTok spokesperson has denied any breach took place, stating that the warning issued by Microsoft is completely unrelated to the video platform's backend source code.
In 2021, TikTok overtook Google to become the world's most visited website, security firm Cloudflare stated. ByteDance, the platform's China-based parent company has drawn the flak for sharing details about their algorithms with the Chinese government.
