TikTok dismisses significant data breach claim

TikTok has denied having its systems breached as claimed by the hacking group BlueHornet, also known as AgainstTheWest, according to The Hacker News. BlueHornet has reported in a Breach Forums message board on Saturday that it was able to compromise the social video service's Alibaba Cloud instance, enabling it to access a 790GB database with 2.05 billion records. However, TikTok confirmed that all of the data posted by BlueHornet were already publicly available and not exposed due to a breach of its systems. "The samples also appear to contain data from one or more third-party sources not affiliated with TikTok. We do not believe users need to take any proactive actions, and we remain committed to the safety and security of our global community," said a TikTok spokesperson. Security Discovery Threat Intelligence Researcher Bob Diachenko also noted that while there was a breach, it seems that the data's source was Hangzhou Julun Network Technology Co., Ltd and not TikTok. BlueHornet's Twitter account has already been suspended after failing to mention that the data leaked was not from TikTok.