A potential data breach at popular social media app TikTok could have exposed over two billion data records.

Information purported as being from TikTok was posted on a forum by users claiming to belong to the hacker group, AgainstTheWest.

The group said it had accessed the data from both TikTok and messaging app WeChat on an Alibaba cloud instance.

While both companies are Chinese-owned, they are not part of the same company.

The hackers claim that 790 GB of data was accessed, including the company’s source code and over two billion data records, including payment information.

Despite its name, the group has largely targeted groups in China and Russia, as it perceives these to be a threat to Western society.

While the data was posted on the 3rd of September, the exact date the information was accessed is still unknown.

TikTok has denied that a data breach has taken placed, and that the posted information is from publicly accessible sources and not due to the company’s systems being compromised.

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“This is an incorrect claim — our security team investigated this statement and determined that the code in question is completely unrelated to TikTok’s backend source code, which has never been merged with WeChat data,” the company told Bleepingcomputer, which broke the story.

“We do not believe users need to take any proactive actions, and we remain committed to the safety and security of our global community,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan has added.

As such, current speculation points to the database belonging to a third party that has scraped publicly available data and collected it in one place.

Similar scrapes have affected other company, such as LinkedIn. While the data is publicly available, collating it poses a threat to people as the information can be used to help target other cyber-attacks, such as spear phishing campaigns.

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