TikTok and Cybersecurity – Brendan Egan, Simple SEO Group

This is texturing TV. Hey guys. Thanks for the throw.

We're here with Brendan agent. Who is CEO for simple CEO? And we're talking about cybersecurity and tiktok Brendan.

Welcome the show. Thanks, Mike morning. We are seeing a lot more tiktok these days and it seems to be taking the younger generation by storm and they're using it for work purposes now and for marketing purposes and you guys of course build a lot of custom applications in that marketing space.

So what are you seeing from an adoption rate? And for that matter? What are the cyber security implications?

Yeah, I think Mike the adoption is has gone to the roof obviously tiktoks growth has shattered the growth of Facebook Instagram Snapchat all the all the predecessors that we all know as household names and so the concern from a security standpoint. There's there's quite a few different concerns one from the get go has been this is really the first time that a foreign app has been so widely used adopted so rapidly not only in the United States, but in other countries around the world secondarily, there's concerns over who owns that app tiktok is built in China their parent company is is owned in part by the Chinese Communist party. So there's some concerns over you know, where is that data living what's going on with that data?

You know, what information is the is the Chinese Communist party and government, you know having not only on US citizens but citizens around the globe and I think the reason Mike that you're asking that question today is is a report that came out about two weeks ago. Now that says that there's some some JavaScript key logging that's embedded within the tiktok mobile application which Essentially, you know has the ability to log every single tap of your screen and every single punch of your keyboard on your on your phone. What's concerning about that obviously is not only logging things within tiktok, but tiktok has an in-app browser which opens up the whole world of the world wide web to you financial information banking information.

You name it. So whatever you use in that tiktok browser potentially is also being logged as well. Our cybersecurity people starting to track this are they aware of this from your perspective or is it just flying under their radar?

You know, I think it's starting to become something that's getting a lot more attention. We've seen the government here in the US issuing warnings that government employees should not have tiktok on their phones, but it really hasn't gone far enough in my opinion issuing a warning versus actually having a block of something is is obviously very different. They're asking people to obey that that guidance as opposed to actually mandating it down.

I think the other concern is that you know, my firm when we build an app for a business and we submit it to you Apple or Google or the Microsoft app stores. Those apps are very heavily scrutinized by the respective app stores. And if we don't have all of our tees crossed and our eyes Dot and our privacy policies in place, they'll just reject that app.

And so one of the questions that I keep asking Mike is why are these app stores letting tiktok get away with this do they just not realize that this happening which I find hard to believe that these giant tech companies aren't aware of. What's Within These app codes, you know, or is there something else going on here that they're letting that kind of have a free path because of how large And how much money is at stake with an app like tiktok? And also seems that the average end user is not particularly concerned or maybe they're just unaware, but maybe they don't really care who's looking at their data.

So is there something going on with this generation of end users who are just kind of maybe expecting that somebody's looking at their data. They just don't care. You know, I think I think what's happening in this generation in my opinion is that we're growing up around different tools that protect us from these types of things.

We have credit monitoring, you know, our credit card companies don't pull this liable for fraud, you know, we have all sorts of digital wallets and different things and I think that's security has become a little bit less of a concern for the younger generation, especially generation. That's using tiktok. I think the other thought is that you know, they're thinking hey who cares tiktoks logging what I'm doing within their app every app probably does that without thinking of the implications of what they're doing within that browser.

So if you're liking something on tiktok, if your commenting on your friends video, maybe not a very big security concern, but if you're completing a financial transaction, you're logging into other third party applications within that in that browser, you know, now that data is potentially being exposed and I think that's where the largest cyber security risk is. Is there something unique about tiktok that the other social media platforms can't just provide similar capabilities and then maybe we wouldn't have this issue but it seems like for whatever reason they're unable to create that same level of user and application experience. You know, we've seen you know copycat.

Apps for since the beginning of time. I mean since my space and Facebook first took off years and years ago and I think that as time goes on here what we're seeing is Instagram has adopted their real functionality and they're rolling out new tools to try to be more similar to tiktok as a Snapchat Snapchat's been trying, you know, Snapchat probably goes head to head with tiktok more so than Instagram even and they've been rolling out different tools and features to try to lure people in you know, for whatever reason tiktok seems to kind of call lightning in a bottle and just very quickly grew and as you know, Mike when an app grows that quickly and games that large of a user base, it can be very hard for another app to kind of come in and take over that market share. That's why Facebook bought Instagram right what Facebook had tons of money they could have built Instagram if they wanted to but they knew how hard of the hurdle it was to overcome to get users to actually switch from one app to the other.

And so I think we're in a situation where regardless of what Instagram Facebook Snapchat other apps do I think tiktok is gonna be here to stay just because of that early adoption that it's experience. What is the liability for somebody who does build a service and delivers it through tiktok? I mean are they going to be held accountable by say?

I don't know the state of California for privacy, or will it be tiktok or both? I mean it seems like the responsibility just doesn't reside with tiktokers. You know the tricky thing again is that this is the first time that we have such a large widely used app.

That's that's entirely built and and hosted overseas. So in the cases of you know, Google Microsoft Facebook all the big tech companies that we have here. They have very strong us presences and headquarters here within our soil, right.

So they're they're governed by our laws here and it becomes very difficult when you have a company that's in China for us to actually hold them accountable in some way. So unless you know courts and less the government starts to dictate what tech companies can put in their app stores and dictate what people can actually use on us soil in terms of foreignly build applications. We're gonna kind of be a little bit stuck I think in that regard and we've seen States obviously like California being a leader in privacy regulations and other states are following suit, there's even talks about a federal federal Privacy Act that's been getting some more attention and in recent months and those May kind of come down and have some implications for tiktok, but I think the implications Mike are gonna fall On the companies that are allowing you to download tiktok those being Google and apple rather than falling on tiktok itself as a company.

Yes, do you think they'll be regulations coming out of Washington new? Look at this and address this I mean, it's it seems like the guys in Congress are getting a little more aggressive about these topics. I I do think there will be I think that you know with the elections and and the Twitter, you know controversy going on with Elon Musk and all the different Hot Topics that are in the news both political and non political in regards to Big Tech.

I do think that tiktok's gonna start to take more of a front seat in terms of concern. I think that you know candidly I think that people aren't really realizing as you said earlier Mike and I think they're realizing the risks that really exists and all this data, you know being out there in in the wrong hands and you know, there's there's AI there's algorithms these days there's technology that's combing through all that data trying to you know, extract things that you and I couldn't even imagine, you know, that's being extracted out of that data being collected. And so I think as our politicians and and our leaders here in the US start to wake up to that fact and really get in touch with the reality of what's going on with our data and our privacy, we're gonna see over the next months and years a lot more regulation around that Do you think someday we'll see deep fakes based on the data that's being collected from tiktok starting to emerge, you know, we certainly could you know, they're collecting not only video and and photo data but also text data and so, you know, you start to worry about a day and an age as deep fake technology continues to emerge and gets better and better where they're not only taking your persona on your information but maybe taking you know information that they might not otherwise know about you your mother's maiden name, you know, who your aunt and uncle are things like that where you can create a very legitimate deep fake not only from a technological perspective that looks real but also using information and spoken words that you would actually say and speak the other concern there.

Is that as the the largest way that people often spot deep fakes is that they're not speaking in the same way that an individual speaks, right? We all talk differently. We all use different words and phrases and so as videos and and text our kind of collected and and combed through with AI technology.

You can not only build a deep fake. That looks real. It also sounds very real as well.

Yeah, so what's your best advice to folks right now? What should they be doing or thinking about here as it relates because we are building apps and people are using it. But is there a smart way to go about doing it?

You know, I think I think the the real thing for end users and consumers is to just be careful of what apps you're using. I know it sounds like a very mundane task but actually read through those privacy policies. He's actually understand what apps are collecting because more times than not those privacy policies say in black and white words what they're collecting and people just don't realize it and so, you know try to use apps less or gives give apps fewer permissions to actually Access Data.

I always recommend, you know, giving apps the least amount of permission that you need to or give them permission just while you're using the app to access things like your camera your microphone, you know, your photo album on your phone your file history, you know, those apps can function with all that information. So try to give them as little information as possible. And then the other side of that Mike is to make sure that you're only really using apps that you trust and so I think in the case of tiktok, I think it's gonna be very hard to get people to not use the app entirely but, you know try using it last you set the mindful of what information you're putting in the app and most important.

Never use the in-app browser. If you're gonna you know, click on a link within tiktok or your friends sends you something to buy don't actually open that link in tiktok open it in your native phone browser, which is gonna be a lot safer for you. All right.

Well if the risk of sounding like an old guy telling people to get off my lawn it may very well be the tick tock is a time bomb. Hey Brendan, thanks for being on the show. Thanks so much.

I appreciate it. All right back to you guys in the studio.