Claim of TikTok breach spotlights viral app’s lure as target

ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok surpassed a billion monthly users a year ago and now ranks as many young people’s favourite app. That makes it an enticing target for hackers who may seek to hijack popular accounts or resell sensitive information. — AP

TikTok, the short-video sensation that’s among the world’s most downloaded apps, is coming under increased scrutiny about its data security as it guards the personal information of over a billion users.

On Sept 5, several cybersecurity analysts tweeted about the discovery of what was purportedly a breach of an insecure server that allowed access to TikTok’s storage, which they believe contained personal user data. Only days earlier, Microsoft Corp said it had found a “high-severity vulnerability” in TikTok’s Android application, “which would have allowed attackers to compromise users’ accounts with a single click.”