Anonymous Hackers Claim TikTok is a ‘Chinese Spyware’

Seems like it’s going to be a really rocky road ahead for TikTok! After India’s ban on the Chinese short-video app, now popular Hacker group Anonymous has mounted a fierce campaign on social media to ban TikTok globally, saying its a malware from the Chinese government that is spying on its millions of users. Also Read - Anonymous Hacktivists Return After George Floyd Murder, 'Expose' Files on Donald Trump's Child Trafficking-Princess Diana's Alleged Killing

Notably, the global backlash against the app accelerated after the Beta version of iOS 14 exposed it constantly reading user clipboards.

In a tweet late Wednesday, The Anonymous group urged users to delete the app and wrote: “Delete TikTok now. If you know someone that is using it, explain to them that it is essentially malware operated by the Chinese government running a massive spying operation”.

The account also shared a link to a Reddit post from an engineer who claimed to have “reverse-engineered” TikTok to find many security and privacy issues. However, there’s yet to be substantial proof as to the validity of these claims.

“Tiktok is harvesting data on children/teens to monitor their market reach and political development; to find the best methodologies to coerce them within the next 5-10 years. This gives China an upper hand on the manipulation of large swaths of society across several countries,” Anonymous further tweeted.

In the US, The government has launched an investigation into censorship practices on the platform and the U.S. Army and Navy have both banned the app from government devices.

The Anonymous group also mentioned India in one of its Twitter posts, saying how the country has India has been facing increased cyberthreats from China and over 40,000 hacking attempts were made across several sectors in India including banking and IT infrastructure.

Meanwhile, TikTok is banned in India along with 58 other Chinese apps amid tensions between both the countries over Galwan valley clash.