X-Industry

ByteDance is being exiled from Canada, though the TikTok app is not. Following the US's example, Canada has spent recent years questioning the world's most popular Chinese app. In February 2023, TikTok was banned from all government devices, citing security concerns. Later that year, the government called for a broader national security review under the 1985 Investment Canada Act, which empowers the government to scrutinize foreign investments.

In concluding that review, the Minister of Innovati

Transparent Tribe (aka APT 36, Operation C-Major) has been active since at least 2016 with attacks against Indian government and military personnel.  The group relies heavily on social engineering attacks to deliver a variety of Windows and Android spyware, including spear-phishing and watering hole attacks.

In September 2023, SentinelLabs outlined the CapraTube campaign, which used weaponized Android applications (APK) designed to mimic YouTube, often in a suspected dating context due to the na

In an effort to shore up its reputation in the West, TikTok has taken measures to stop a cyber-attack targeting several brands and celebrity accounts, including news network CNN.  A spokesperson for the company said, "We have been collaborating closely with CNN to restore account access and implement enhanced security measures to safeguard their account moving forward."  TikTok said the number of accounts compromised is "very small" and it is working with affected account owners to restore acces

The US House of Representatives has passed legislation that could lead to a nationwide ban on the popular video-sharing app TikTok, reigniting debates around data privacy, national security, and the limits of government oversight.  The bipartisan bill, named the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, requires the Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok.  If it fails to do so, the app would be prohibited from operating in the United States, an

Wellington Whimpy used to say, “I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” The manager of a State of Illinois White Castle restaurant is seeking enforcement of the state's biometric data privacy law on behalf of all the chain's employees for what she claims is a decade of violations. The proposed class-action lawsuit against the fast-food chain, known for its hamburgers, alleges that fingerprint scans used to access restaurant computer systems violate the State of Illinois Biometric Inf

Almost 2 years ago (09-2019), Red Sky Alliance reported on the negative ramifications of TikTok: “TikTok is a popular social media app for sharing short user-created video clips.  TikTok is a youth-oriented app that is used primarily by those in the 16-24 age demographic.  TikTok is hugely popular with about 500 million monthly users worldwide and more than 26 million users in the United States.  The problem is that TikTok is a Chinese social media app, developed in China by a young engineer nam

The ongoing controversies surrounding TikTok hit a new gear on 14 January 2021 with a bombshell report accusing the Chinese company of spying on millions of Android users using a technique banned by Google.  According to a Wall Street Journal report, TikTok used a banned tactic to bypass the privacy safeguard in Android to collect unique identifiers from millions of mobile devices, data that allows the app to track users online without allowing them to opt out.

TikTok, based in Beijing, China, h

A class action lawsuit was filed in California against TikTok, the Chinese social media platform developer, in November 2019.  The lawsuit claimed that the TikTok app was designed to “covertly tap into a massive array of private and personally-identifiable information” and used “non-standard encryption to conceal the transfer of such data from users’ devices to Defendants.”

The 46-page lawsuit text contained details about the data types that TikTok was collecting, including user-generated video