Breaking news has been spotted by our threat monitoring team in iZOOlogic about the TikTok platform allegedly suffering from a data breach attack that could expose millions of users to potential compromise.
First shared from a tweet posted by a security researcher, TikTok’s massive internal backend source code was purportedly stored on an Alibaba Cloud instance, locked behind a weak password that allowed them to access it easily.
Backed with screenshots as proof of the data breach’s authenticity, the researchers’ thread of tweets contained samples of the alleged compromised source code, with about 1.37B entries of folders and indexes from the social media giant, likely holding critical data.
Furthermore, moments after the initial tweets, the researcher stated that they had successfully downloaded about 790GB of data from the breach, which carried 2.5B user entries.
This emerging threat news concerned security groups, including us in iZOOlogic, about the safety of the data of millions of TikTok users worldwide.
In a tweet from another security group, TikTok users are warned about the detected data breach on the social media giant, which holds massive data of people that could be exposed to cyber criminals.
However, despite the shared screenshots of samples from the alleged access on TikTok’s internal source code, the incident has yet to be fully confirmed. It is highly advised, though, that TikTok users immediately change their passwords before hackers steal the data and use it for further malicious attacks. Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) could also help enhance the security of a TikTok account.
The social media firm has yet to share any comment on the alleged data breach on their system. Regardless of the incident’s confirmation of authenticity, it would be wise for all TikTok users to follow the security protocol of changing their passwords and applying MFA before any compromise could happen. Prevention is better than cure, even with cybersecurity instances.
With millions of avid TikTok users globally, a threat of compromise is critical news that must be taken with prompt action. Our experts in iZOOlogic will continue to probe this issue and share updates as it becomes available.
