Stolen live footage of celebrities, content creators and others is being exploited by scammers by abusing TikTok’s LIVE functionality, a feature designated for those TikTok users who have amassed a minimum of 1,000 followers, according to security firm Tenable.
Three scams
There are three areas being exploited:
- TikTok LIVE Gifts – digital gifts given to creators by fans that can be redeemed for cash
- Promotion of questionable products – often sold at steep markup through dropshipping services
- Affiliate links to adult dating websites – scammers earn money for each referral
Speaking about the scams, Tenable’s staff research engineer Satnam Narang explains, “Since April 2021, I’ve been following highly motivated scammers who have been exploiting the sympathy of TikTok users and using stolen video content to amass enough followers to go LIVE on TikTok. The video content is being stolen from well known celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, content creators like Charli D’Amelio [the creator with the largest following on TikTok], and countless others to fleece TikTok users and the platform itself by abusing TikTok’s LIVE functionality.” Other targets include Avril Lavigne and Chris Pratt, as well as popular TikTok creators including Bella Poarch, who has the most popular video on TikTok plus many others.
Steady income
The scams can generate a steady stream of revenue through different methods, and in the case of LIVE gifts, a way to bleed TikTok users of pennies at a time while staying under the radar of site moderators. Ambitious scammers using stolen footage and multiple creator profiles could potentially run hours of LIVE streams per day across multiple accounts, resulting in incremental revenue in exchange for very little effort.
Reporting scammers
To cut off these scammers, Satnam offers the following advice for TikTok and its users, “The quickest solution for these scams is to leverage the built-in reporting functionality under the “Share” icon. In the case of obvious impersonations involving celebrities or noteworthy TikTok creators, users can select the “Pretending to be someone else” option. However, for other questionable TikTok LIVE content, there is no clear option for reporting scams.”
TikTok was recently revealed to be the highest earning app in the world in Q3 2121.
