TikTok is now denying any trace of a cybersecurity breach for its social media platform despite hackers claiming to have access to the data and personal information from more than a billion accounts. In a statement posted on Twitter, the company says that it “found no evidence of a security breach,” and emphasized in another conversation with Bloomberg that the source code posted by the hackers “is completely unrelated to TikTok’s backend source code.”
Rumors of a security breach first surfaced from a post from a hacking forum that claimed to have obtained a database that covers the information of more than two billion entries from both TikTok and WeChat accounts. However, cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt points out that the data the hackers provided were all publicly accessible to begin with, so there might not have been a hack at all.
TikTok prioritizes the privacy and security of our users’ data. Our security team investigated these claims and found no evidence of a security breach. https://t.co/TdCZDUFLPN
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) September 5, 2022
Elsewhere in the tech industry, Meta is facing a $402 million USD fine over its privacy policies regarding minors.