A newly emerged menace actor, going by the alias “Often9,” has posted on a distinguished cybercrime and database buying and selling discussion board, claiming to own 428 million distinctive TikTok person data. The submit is titled “TikTok 2025 Breach – 428M Distinctive Traces.”
The vendor’s submit, which appeared on the discussion board yesterday (Could 29, 2025), guarantees a dataset containing detailed person data comparable to:
- E-mail addresses
- Cell phone numbers
- Biography, avatar URLs, and profile hyperlinks
- TikTok person IDs, usernames, and nicknames
- Account flags like private_account, secret, verified, and ttSeller standing.
- Publicly seen metrics comparable to follower counts, following counts, like counts, video counts, digg counts, and pal counts.
The inclusion of private fields comparable to e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and inner account flags will not be one thing that may be casually scraped from TikTok’s public-facing web site or cellular app. If these particulars are verified by TikTok to be correct and up to date, it suggests entry to both inner TikTok programs or an uncovered third-party database.
Risk Actor Explains How the Alleged TikTok Breach Occurred
Somebody on the discussion board requested the hacker how the information was extracted, whether or not it was simply scraping or one thing extra. In response, the hacker defined how they allegedly managed to extract the information.
“Usually, TikTok doesn’t present any public API to entry personal knowledge like emails or cellphone numbers. However some time in the past, resulting from a vulnerability in one in all their inner APIs, it was attainable to extract this knowledge. We found and abused that API earlier than it was patched, which allowed us to gather this dataset. So technically sure, it appears to be like like scraping, but it surely was executed by an exploitable endpoint, not easy public crawling. So briefly: it’s scraped by way of API, however as a result of it leveraged a flaw to entry knowledge that wasn’t meant to be public, It’s a breach.”
Often9
What does Often9’s reply imply? The menace says that beneath regular circumstances, TikTok doesn’t present any public software (API) that lets somebody entry personal particulars like emails or cellphone numbers. However sooner or later, they discovered a vulnerability in one in all TikTok’s inner APIs.
This flaw allowed them to drag out personal person knowledge that was not meant to be accessible. They used (and abused) this vulnerability earlier than TikTok fastened it, letting them gather a big dataset.
Whereas this course of may seem like “scraping” (which normally means gathering public knowledge utilizing automated instruments), on this case, it was extra critical as a result of it concerned exploiting an inner system that uncovered personal data
Including to the load of the declare, the menace actor is keen to work by a intermediary, a standard strategy on prison boards when large-scale knowledge gross sales require third-party verification to construct purchaser belief.
However Right here’s Why Skepticism Is Warranted
Regardless of the attention-grabbing gross sales pitch from the menace actor, a number of purple flags solid doubt on the validity of the declare. Importantly, a major variety of pattern entries present empty or generic fields for emails and cellphone numbers, elevating the likelihood that this dataset was put collectively from scraped public profiles and organised utilizing previous breach knowledge or guesswork.
The menace actor is a brand new account on the discussion board, having joined solely days in the past, with no status, neither constructive nor unfavourable. Within the cybercrime world, status is forex; main breach sellers sometimes have years of verified historical past or previous profitable gross sales.
The discussion board itself has a current historical past of inflated or false breach claims. Notably, the identical platform was used final week to advertise a so-called “1.2 billion Fb person” knowledge sale, which was later uncovered as faux in an unique Hackread.com investigation, resulting in the vendor’s ban.
A more in-depth have a look at the pattern knowledge reveals that many fields, person IDs, usernames, profile hyperlinks, and follower metrics, are publicly accessible and might be obtained by large-scale scraping operations. Whereas scraping at scale can nonetheless pose dangers (like phishing or spam campaigns), it doesn’t equate to a breach of inner programs.
Cross-Checking E-mail Addresses with HaveIBeenPwned
Hackread.com additionally cross-checked the e-mail addresses within the pattern knowledge towards data on HaveIBeenPwned, and most have been present in fewer than two earlier knowledge breaches. That is alarming and provides some legitimacy to the individuality of the information. Nonetheless, a 1,200-line pattern from a supposedly 428 million file breach will not be sufficient to ascertain legitimacy.
For now, this declare ought to be handled with warning. As tempting because the gross sales numbers could also be, reputationless sellers on cybercrime boards typically exaggerate or fabricate to make a fast revenue or entice consideration.
Not The First Time
This isn’t the primary time a menace actor has claimed to breach TikTok’s knowledge. In September 2022, a hacker claimed to have acquired 2 billion TikTok data, together with inner statistics, supply code, 790 GB of person knowledge, and extra, a declare that was later denied by the corporate.
Hackread.com has reached out to TikTok and might affirm that the social media large is investigating the alleged breach.
