Checks & Imbalances: Turkish TikTok Accounts Hacked Ahead Of Election
Also, Donald Trump has been out of office for more than two years, but he continues to dominate the money-in-politics beat.
As Many As 700,000 Turkish TikTok Accounts Were Hacked Before The Country’s Presidential Election
Weeks before Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, eked out a narrow reelection in May, TikTok’s acting security chief, Kim Albarella, received a piece of bad news: As many as 700,000 TikTok accounts in Turkey had been compromised by a hack that allowed attackers to access users’ private information and control their accounts, reports Emily Baker-White.
Internal emails, chat logs, documents, and other sourcing from inside and outside of TikTok reveal that the company was made aware of the vulnerability, which stemmed from its so called “greyrouting” of SMS messages through insecure channels, more than a year earlier. In April 2022, TikTok’s security chief Roland Cloutier received an email from the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre, a division of the nation’s top intelligence agency, GCHQ, warning that this practice could allow “SIM farms” in Russia and other countries to request and intercept one-time passwords to gain access to TikTok users’ accounts.
In layman’s terms, greyrouting means sending SMS text messages through unsecured channels in order to bypass fees established by international telecommunications agreements. Using greyroutes can save companies money and help them avoid guardrails like rate limits and anti-spam detection, but doing so can compromise messages’ security, making them vulnerable to interception.
By The Numbers
$6,000
The amount Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) campaign paid Post Hill Press for books in June. Last year, Post Hill Press published her memoir, My American Life.
4
The number of links to its social-media profiles that Field Ethos, a publication on outdoor adventure that Donald Trump Jr. co-founded, includes at the bottom of its emails.
0
The number of Field Ethos’ links to Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social-media platform.
Road to 2024
2024 Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder joins “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss why he should be the Republican nominee for president, the top social problems facing the United States, why he does not believe in systemic racism and more.
Tracking Trump
Trump’s Licensing Business Receives Influx Of Middle East Money
Developers from around the globe once paid Donald Trump to use his name for their projects. But politics changed the Trump brand, and his name came off buildings in Toronto, Vancouver, Panama, New York City and Washington, D.C., reports Dan Alexander. Post-presidency, his trademark still has cachet in at least one part of the world: the Middle East.
The former president received $5.35 million of licensing fees for a golf project in Oman, according to a federal filing that requires candidates to list their income since the start of 2022. He disclosed another $1.5 million in licensing fees from a project in the United Arab Emirates. Two projects generating $6.9 million may not sound like much for a guy worth an estimated $2.5 billion, but it meant a lot to Trump’s licensing business, which comprises a small slice of his fortune. In 2021, Trump reported less than $5 million of licensing income on his financial disclosure report.
Trump Has Trademarks In Iran, Cuba, Venezuela And 84 Other Countries
Donald Trump has only done big projects in a handful of countries, but he has sought to protect his name and brand on every continent other than Antarctica. The Republican frontrunner has secured roughly 600 trademarks in 87 countries, territories and international bodies worldwide, including both U.S. allies and adversaries, according to a financial disclosure report released last week, report Kavya Gupta and Kyle Mullins
Trump Could Be Charged With These Crimes In DOJ Jan. 6 Probe—And They All Could Include Prison Time
Former President Donald Trump has been identified as a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into January 6 and the aftermath of the 2020 election, he said Tuesday, suggesting a third indictment against the ex-president may be imminent, which could bring federal charges for such crimes as conspiracy, obstruction and deprivation of rights and potential prison sentences if he’s convicted, reports Alison Durkee.
Judge Rejects Donald Trump’s Request For New Trial In E. Jean Carroll Case
A federal judge rejected Donald Trump’s motion for a new trial in the E. Jean Carroll defamation and sexual abuse case Wednesday, months after a jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million in damages, reports Ana Faguy.
Quiz
Why didn’t TikTok change its SMS provider to fix a problem that sent messages through unsecure channels?
- Doing so was too expensive
- Doing so was too time-consuming
- The Chinese government didn’t approve of such a switch
- It didn’t understand the problem
Check if you got it right here.
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