TikTok Editorial Analysis – Schneier on Security
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/tiktok-editorial-analysis.html
TikTok seems to be skewing things in the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
TikTok
Utah sues TikTok for getting children ‘addicted’ to its algorithm – The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911803/utah-tiktok-child-addiction-china-deception-lawsuit
Utah’s consumer protection division alleges that TikTok misrepresents itself as independent of China and is designed to ‘hook users’ into its endless feed.
TikTok fined €345m for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts | The Guardian
Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches
Chinese communist party ‘accessed Hong Kong protesters’ TikTok data’ | The Guardian
A former executive at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has alleged that the Chinese Communist party accessed user data from the social video app belonging to Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists.
Yintao Yu, a former head of engineering at ByteDance’s US operation, claimed in a legal filing that a committee of Communist party members accessed TikTok data that included the users’ network information, Sim card identifications and IP addresses in a bid to identify the individuals and their locations.
The claims, in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit brought by Yu in a California court and reported by the Wall Street Journal, also allege the party accessed TikTok users’ communications, monitored Hong Kong users who uploaded protest-related content and that Beijing-based ByteDance maintained a “backdoor channel” for the party to access US user data.
Yu alleges in the filing that members of a Communist party committee inside ByteDance had access to a “superuser” credential which was also called a “God credential” and allowed them to view all data collected by ByteDance.
TikTok Creators’ Sensitive Financial Information Stored In China
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tiktok-creators-data-security-china/
TikTok has stored the most sensitive financial data of its biggest stars — including those in its “Creator Fund” — on servers in China. Earlier this year, CEO Shou Chew told Congress “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore.”
Hyundai and Kia thefts keep rising despite security fix
https://news.yahoo.com/hyundai-kia-thefts-keep-rising-144034139.html
Nearly three months ago, Hyundai and Kia unveiled software that was designed to thwart an epidemic of thefts of their vehicles, caused by a security flaw that was exposed on TikTok and other social media sites.
So far, it hasn’t solved the problem. Across the country, thieves are still driving off with the vehicles at an alarming rate.
…
The companies’ affected cars, many of them lower-cost models from the 2011 to early 2022 model years, were not equipped with a theft immobilizer. Such a device contains a computer chip in the key that must be recognized by another chip in the steering column before the engines will start.
Though most automakers have had the chips for years, Hyundai and Kia have lagged behind the industry as a whole in installing them on many models, thereby allowing thieves to exploit the security gap.
Justisminister Mehl hadde TikTok på tjenestetelefonen – NRK
https://www.nrk.no/norge/justisminister-mehl-hadde-tiktok-pa-tjenestetelefonen-1.16280577
Gaute Wangen er førsteamanuensis ved NTNU og ekspert i risikostyring av informasjonssikkerhet. Han forteller at TikTok er verstingen av alle appene nå.
TikTok Spied On Forbes Journalists
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/
An internal investigation by ByteDance, the parent company of video-sharing platform TikTok, found that employees tracked multiple journalists covering the company, improperly gaining access to their IP addresses and user data in an attempt to identify whether they had been in the same locales as ByteDance employees.
According to materials reviewed by Forbes, ByteDance tracked multiple Forbes journalists as part of this covert surveillance campaign, which was designed to unearth the source of leaks inside the company following a drumbeat of stories exposing the company’s ongoing links to China.
TikTok tells European users its staff in China get access to their data - The Guardian
TikTok is spelling out to its European users that their data can be accessed by employees outside the continent, including in China, amid political and regulatory concerns about Chinese access to user information on the platform.