TikTok Hijacking, Over 2 Billion Users Struggling With a Lost Data Record: Security Researchers

Cyber security researchers on Monday unveiled a possible data hack in the Chinese short-form video app, TikTok. The hack is alleged to involve the database records of almost 2 billion users. 

On the same day, Twitter encountered posts from several cyber security analysts on “discovering a security breach of an insecure server that propelled access to TikTok's storage, which contained personal user data”.  

“This is your forewarning. #TikTok has reportedly suffered a #data #breach; if true, there may be fallout from it in the coming days. We recommend you change your TikTok #password and enable Two-Factor Authentication if you have not done so already,” tweeted BeeHive CyberSecurity. It further mentioned that it has inspected a sample of the extracted data and communicated via email to private clients and email subscribers.

A TikTok spokesperson reportedly said that their team “inspected this issue and ascertained that the code in question is irrelevant to TikTok's backend source code.”

The issue was further quoted by the Microsoft 365 defender research team—tracking down a susceptibility in the TikTok app for Android, allowing hackers to take over the personal data of millions of users with a single malicious link. 

The Chinese company is said to have denied all the allegations, after hackers claim to have user data and source code.

The susceptibility can cause harm to millions of users, exploiting privacy by providing leverage to security attackers, as expressed by tech giants in a statement last week.