TikTok: Allegations of Keylogging

August 22, 2022

I am not a TikTok person; therefore, I exist in a trend free zone. Others are sucking down short videos with alacrity. I admire a company, possibly linked to China’s government, which has pioneered a next generation video editor and caused the Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind thing to innovate via its signature “me too” method of innovation.

Now TikTok has another feature, which is an interesting allegation. “TikTok’s In-App Browser Can Monitor Your Every Click and Keystroke” asserts:

When Krause [a security researcher] dug a little deeper into what these apps’ in-app browsers really do, he’d found that TikTok does some bad things, including monitoring all of users’ keyboard inputs and taps. So, if you open a web page inside of TikTok’s app, and enter your credit card details there, TikTok can access all of those details. TikTok is also the only app, out of all the apps Krause has looked into, that doesn’t even offer an option to open the link in the device’s default browser, forcing you to go through its own in-app browser.

Let’s assume this finding is spot on. First question: Does anyone care? Second question: So what?

I don’t have answers to either question. I do, however, have several observations:

Oracle, for some reason, seems to care. The estimable database company is making an effort to find information that suggests TikTok data are kept in a cupboard. Only grandma can check out who will be an easy target for psychological manipulation. No results yet, but if TikTok is a neutral service, why’s Oracle involved?
A number of Silicon Valley pundits have pointed out that TikTok is no big deal. That encapsulates the “so what” issue. “Put that head in the sand and opine forward” is the rule of thumb for these insightful folks.
Keyloggers are a fave of certain actors. TikTok may have found them useful for benign purposes.

Quite an allegation.

Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2022

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, cybersecurity, Database, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.