Is user’s crypto at risk?

TikTok continues to gather a head of steam, with the popular social media application surpassing one billion users in 2022. While daily users blissfully swipe through the latest videos from their favorite content creators, data security concerns continue to ask questions of the Chinese social media behemoth.

The company has faced criticism over the past couple years relating to security concerns over data collection policies despite the popularity and prolific onboarding of users around the world. Cryptocurrency users have also questioned whether critical data like private keys to wallets could be scraped by the alleged data practices of TikTok.

United States Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr called for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores in June 2022, claiming the app “harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.”

TikTok is not just another video app.
That’s the sheep’s clothing.

It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.

I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022

Two years prior to this, cyber intelligence firm Check Point Research released a report highlighting vulnerabilities within the TikTok application. This included the ability to take control of TikTok accounts and manipulate their content, delete and upload unauthorized videos, make private “hidden” videos public as well as gaining access to private email addresses and mobile numbers.

The firm shared these discovered exploits with TikTok in late2019 and the company deployed solutions to the vulnerabilities. Check Point Research told Cointelegraph that it has not conducted further research into TikTok’s code since its original examination.

TikTok uses HackerOne to reward code sleuths through its bug bounty program. The initiative rewards the discovery of security vulnerabilities, with different reward bands for the severity of the bug discovered. Since the current bounty table was instituted in October 2021, TikTok has paid out $539,000 in bug bounties.

Related: Former head of TikTok gaming leaves Web2 to build core Web3 protocol

Cointelegraph reached out to TikTok for comment on concerns expressed about its data security and collection practices. A company spokesperson shared a broad range of published…