A cybersecurity firm has called attention to security holes in TikTok that would have allowed hackers to infiltrate the accounts among its billion-plus users, another black eye for a Chinese-owned social media phenom that\u2019s drawn fire from U.S. lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. outlined in a\u00a0report\u00a0a series of vulnerabilities that cyber-attackers could exploit to manipulate user accounts and information, from revealing personal data and deleting videos to sending text messages on behalf of TikTok.<\/p>\n
The research firm said it informed TikTok — owned by Chinese giant ByteDance Inc. — which deployed fixes. TikTok confirmed the patches and\u00a0said\u00a0it was committed to protecting user data, and encouraged researchers to privately disclose flaws.<\/p>\n
The revelations may intensify the scrutiny over a social media service that\u2019s exploded in popularity globally in past years. ByteDance has emerged as the world\u2019s most valuable startup thanks largely to the platform, where more than a billion, largely young, users share lip-syncing and dance videos.<\/p>\n
But with escalating tensions between China and the U.S., American politicians have warned the app represents a national security threat and urged an investigation. The Beijing-based company is\u00a0weighing\u00a0options to address those concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cTikTok videos are entertaining. They\u2019ve created a major trend, a style, even a musical genre,\u201d Check Point researchers wrote in the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as some have experienced, there is often a fine line between fun clips to private, even intimate assets being compromised while trusting to be under the protection from the apps we use.\u201d<\/p>\n
A cybersecurity firm has called attention to security holes in TikTok that would have allowed hackers to infiltrate the accounts among its billion-plus users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":263965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[46251,30766,59100],"class_list":["post-334636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-bytedance","tag-check-point","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}