After a group of hackers posted an advertisement to sell TikTok’s source code and user information, the social media platform immediately responded.
On a forum for hackers, a group calling themselves “AgainstTheWest” announced that they are in possession of a database containing source code and personal information of numerous TikTok users.
This hacker group stated that they attacked TikTok’s servers, stealing a database of 790 GB, which includes source code, over 2 billion records of personal user information, statistics about the platform such as active user counts, application usage time, and more.
This data includes information from Douyin users – the TikTok version specifically for the Chinese market.
The hacker group also uploaded a sample of the data to the forum to illustrate the database they possess. They require buyers to pay in cryptocurrency, making it difficult to trace and uncover the identity of the hacker group.
However, TikTok quickly reassured users and stated that their social media platform has not been hacked.
A TikTok representative mentioned that the information disclosed by the hackers is inaccurate: “This is a false allegation. Our security team has investigated and found no evidence that TikTok has been compromised. We have verified that the data referenced by the hackers consists of publicly available information and that there has been no breach of our internal systems or TikTok’s database.”
TikTok emphasized that users do not need to take any action. The company is committed to the safety and security of its user community.
Meanwhile, American security expert Troy Hunt believes that most of the data the hackers are selling consists of information already publicly available on TikTok. However, there are still some confidential data of unclear origin, so this expert cannot confirm whether the hackers truly breached TikTok’s systems.
In addition to TikTok, the “AgainstTheWest” hacker group also claims to have stolen data from the messaging app WeChat, which is one of the largest user applications in China. Currently, WeChat has not commented on this matter.