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TikTok banned from US Navy government devices – Tech Radar

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Popular social media app TikTok has been banned from United States Navy devices due to security fears.

A Navy bulletin sent to personnel declared that the video sharing app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, would be banned from government-issued mobile devices as it posed a “cybersecurity threat.”

Anyone found to be using government-issued mobile devices who did not uninstall TikTok would be blocked from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the note said.

Threats

In a statement sent to Reuters, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Uriah Orland said the order was part of an effort to “address existing and emerging threats”.

The “Cyber Awareness Message”, which was sent out to personnel on December 16, “identifies the potential risk associated with using the TikTok app and directs appropriate action for employees to take in order to safeguard their personal information.”

TikTok, which has over a billion users worldwide, has come in for increased scrutiny over the past months from US lawmakers as they look to clamp down on possible security threats.

Although popular mainly with teenagers, US army cadets were last month instructed not to use TikTok following concerns raised by Senator Chuck Schumer.

A Navy spokesman said Naval and Marine personnel who use government-issued smart devices are generally allowed to use popular commercial apps, including common social media apps, but from time to time specific programs that present security threats are banned. He would not give examples of apps that are allowed or those considered unsafe.

TikTok has not commented on the story, but its parent company is currently facing a national security review in the US following the $1 billion acquisition of American social media app Musical.ly last month.

Source: Tech Radar

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Down Detector: Facebook
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Collecting Evidence From Social Media Sites – SANS

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Down Detector: Facebook
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Top social media giants: Facebook & Instagram currently Down!

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Facebook and Instagram appear to be partially down for some users around the world today. While you can open both platforms, it looks like you can’t send or receive messages on either platform, and you can’t post new content either.

WhatsApp appeared to be fine for many people, but users in Paraguay, India, Bangladesh, Argentina, and more note that they are experiencing issues with sending messages. DownDetector indicates that those in Brazil were experiencing the most severe outages.

We tested multiple accounts at The Verge, and found that Messenger couldn’t load at all on desktop, although the mobile app was working. Instagram was worse: posts weren’t loading, Instagram Stories were down, and direct messages and the button to post new content were also not working. Facebook’s ad section was not functioning either, and it led to an internal error when you tried to buy an ad.

About an hour after users noted the outage, Facebook responded on Twitter. It also noted that “the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.”

Facebook down Facebook on desktop as of 4PM ET.

Facebook

✔@facebook

We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

17.1K

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Instagram on desktop as of 1PM ET.

According to DownDetector, it looks like the outages are mainly in New England; Texas; Seattle, Washington; parts of Latin America, including Peru; the UK; India; and the Philippines. Users have written in from Canada, Las Vegas, and Turkey to note outages there as well. We’ve reached out to Facebook and Instagram to learn more.

It now looks like Oculus is also down. One user in California wrote in to The Verge, “Nobody can log in to any multiplayer games purchased through the Oculus store. They also can’t access their Oculus Home environments.” Users also reported being unable to buy games from the Oculus store.

Victor E Garcia@otiteb
 ·

@oculus , i am having problems managing apps on the dashboard: users in release channel that were already in are not appearing now. Are your systems having some sort of issues today?

Oculus Support

✔@OculusSupport

Hey there, we’re currently looking into an issue on our end, and hope to have it resolved soon. We really appreciate your patience. Thank you!

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See Oculus Support’s other Tweets

Other users noted that attempting to use Facebook to sign into apps like Tinder or Spotify wasn’t working either. Attempting to do so would bring up an error saying this feature isn’t available right now. If you were already signed into Spotify, it appears that your login is still valid, but once you sign out, you’ll be unable to get back in.

Makena Kelly and Esther Cohen contributed to this report.

Update March 13th, 2:08PM ET: This article has been updated with further details and comment from Facebook. It now appears that WhatsApp is also down for some users.

Update March 13th, 4:05PM ET: Some users have reported Oculus is also down and that the feature for authenticating logins through Facebook is down.

Source: The verge

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