US defense official terms TikTok as potential cybersecurity threat

News, US April 10, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

United States defense officials have warned of potential cybersecurity risks from the TikTok social media platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

John F. Plumb, who serves as assistant secretary of defense for space policy and principal cyber advisor to the secretary of defense, termed the TikTok video-sharing app as a “potential threat vector” to the United States.

Plumb stated that the U.S. adversaries use “cyberspace to conduct operations against the Department of Defense Information Network and the U.S. homeland. They do this to weaken our allies and partners and to undermine U.S. interests”.

“For decades, China has used its cyber capabilities to steal sensitive information, intellectual property and research from U.S. public- and private-sector institutions, including the defense industrial base… In crisis, PRC [China’s] leaders believe that achieving information dominance will enable them to seize and keep the strategic initiative, disrupt our ability to mobilize, to project, and sustain the joint force, and to ensure the PRC’s desired end state,” he added.

Department of Defense official John Plumb and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command Gen. Paul Nakasone briefed the Members of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on cyber, information technologies, and innovation, on potential threats from the TikTok app.

U.S. Army General Nakasone said that “one-third of the adult population receives their news from this app, one-sixth of our children are saying they’re constantly on this app, if you consider that there’s 150 million people every single day that are obviously touching this app, this provides a foreign nation a platform for information operations, a platform for surveillance, and a concern we have with regards to who controls that data.”

*^{Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, speaks at the Association of the U.S. Army’s “Hot Topics” forum in Arlington, Va. (Image Credit: DoD/Luc Dunn/AUSA)}*

Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency, and chief of the Central Security Service, General Nakasone stated that “The department has already prohibited the use of TikTok on government phones”.

The American general stressed that the U.S. policymakers need to be aware of the threats and that “there needs to be a policy in place that balances the ability to share information with protection from adversaries’ ability to conduct surveillance and information operations against the United States”.

The Department of Defense statement highlighted the actions that the department has taken in both defensive and offensive cyberspace. “Operating in cyberspace today is an essential part of the department’s ability to deter aggression and ensure our nation’s security,” the statement added.

Earlier on March 23, TikTok’s Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew appeared before a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in Washington as American lawmakers questioned him about the app’s data privacy issues and connection with the Chinese government.

^{TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing as lawmakers scrutinize the video-sharing app, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., on March 23, 2023. (Image Credit: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)}

The hearing lasted for about five hours as American lawmakers tried to find ways to ban the popular video app in the United States. The chair of the committee Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers told the app’s CEO that “Your platform should be banned”.

In response, the TikTok CEO stressed that the company’s practices are no different than U.S. technology giants. Chew said that his company does not pose any threat to the U.S. and emphasized that the company’s “approach has never been to dismiss or trivialize any of these concerns. We have addressed them with real action”.