by Lucas Nolan at Breitbart News
The Wrap reports that according to two recent studies, TikTok can bypass security protections on Apple and Google app stores and gain full access to user data. The studies were conducted by “white hat” cybersecurity experts that hack and infiltrate systems for the good of the public.
ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming (STR/Getty)
Three girls watching TikTok videos (Luiza Nalimova/Getty)
The studies were completed in November 2020 and January 2021. The summaries of the studies suggest that TikTok is able to bypass code audits on the Apple and Google app stores. The research also found that TikTok is able to change the app’s behavior without users’ knowledge and access device tracking features that give the Chinese company and third parties access to full user data.
This far exceeds the access that U.S.-made apps like Facebook and Twitter have to user data. Frank Lockerman, a cyber threat engineer at cybersecurity firm Conquest Cyber who reviewed the studies, stated: “These dynamic properties allow TikTok carte blanche access to your device within the scope of what the application can see. The TikTok browser not only has access to convert from web to device, but it also has the ability to query things on the device itself.”
TikTok alleges that its methods are standard…
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