Security News
Users in the US would be unable to download the two Chinese-owned apps from local app stores, according to the Department of Commerce. On Friday, the Department of Commerce announced that both apps will be blocked as downloads across US app stores.
The US Department of Commerce has threatened to ban new downloads of Chinese-owned social media platforms Tiktok and Wechat from app stores this weekend. Starting from Sunday 20 September, the two Chinese-owned apps will be banned from being hosted on US app stores.
The U.S. will ban the downloads of the Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat on Sunday, with a total ban on the use of the latter, citing national security and data privacy concerns. Some security experts have raised concerns that ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese company that owns TikTok, would maintain access to information on the 100 million TikTok users in the United States, creating a security risk.
Researchers have disclosed four high-severity flaws in the Android version of TikTok that could have easily been exploited by a seemingly benign third-party Android app. Disclosure of the flaws come just as the owner of social-media platform have reportedly chosen Oracle as an American tech partner that could help keep the app running in the U.S.,on the heels of U.S. president Donald Trump threatening to ban the app over spying concerns.
American tech giant Microsoft said Sunday its offer to buy TikTok was rejected, leaving Oracle as the sole remaining bidder ahead of the imminent deadline for the Chinese-owned video app to sell or shut down its US operations. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Oracle had won the bidding war, citing people familiar with the deal, although the company did not immediately confirm that to AFP. But two Chinese state media outlets - CGTN and China News Service - said Monday that ByteDance will not sell TikTok to Oracle either, citing unnamed sources.
Researchers have discovered a new Android spyware campaign pushing a "Pro" version of the TikTok app that is exploiting fears among its young and gullible users that the popular social media app is on the cusp of being banned in the United States. The rogue app called TikTok Pro is being promoted by threat actors using a variant of a campaign already making the rounds, which urges users via SMS and WhatsApp messages to download the latest version of TikTok from a specific web address, said Zscaler senior security researcher Shivang Desai, in a report published Tuesday.
US retail giant Walmart said Thursday it had teamed with Microsoft to buy TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form video app that has come under fire from the administration of President Donald Trump. The order effectively set a deadline for a sale of TikTok to a US company, with Trump insisting that the US should get a cut for its role in making the deal happen.
As tensions soared between the world's two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance - effectively setting a deadline for a sale of the app to a US company. "Today we are filing a complaint in federal court challenging the administration's efforts to ban TikTok in the US," the company said in a blog post.
Video app TikTok said Saturday it will challenge in court a Trump administration crackdown on the popular Chinese-owned platform, which Washington accuses of being a national security threat. As tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance - effectively setting a deadline for a potential pressured sale of the app to a US company.
TikTok has stepped up its defense against US accusations that the popular video app is a national security threat, denouncing what it called "Rumors and misinformation" about its links to the Chinese government. US user data is stored here, with a backup in Singapore, according to TikTok.