Embattled CBS chief Les Moonves and his executive team are accused of deleting critical messages, related to the network’s ongoing legal battle with Shari Redstone, using the TigerText app.
A court filing Monday on behalf of Redstone’s National Amusements holding company claims “relevant evidence has already been destroyed” using the app. But what is TigerText?
TigerText is an app — available on phones, desktops, and tablets — that allows users to delete messages once they’ve been read. TigerText also lets users create group conversations and add other people on an invite-only basis.
TigerText, which rebranded as “TigerConnect” earlier this year, positions itself as a leading messaging app for the healthcare industry, connecting workers and hospital documents one one streamlined app. Users can “retract errant messages before or after they’re read,” as well as “remove all traces of a message from a conversation,” according to the company’s website. Attachments can also be permanently deleted from messages.
Accounts are set up by verifying via email and a text link. Another feature allowing users to safeguard information lets them set a timer on how long messages are available before being automatically deleted.
TigerConnect is currently ranked 93 among medical apps in Apple’s App Store. It sports a 3.3 rating out of 5. Several recent reviews complain the app is “frustrating,” with inconsistent service and bug issues.
The app was launched in 2010, and had raised more than $80 million since its last cash infusion in 2015. TigerText co-founder Andrew Brooks is an orthopedic surgeon.
Austin P. Berglas, the global head of Cyber Forensics and Incident Response at BlueVoyant, a global cybersecurity firm that advises private sector organizations on cybersecurity risks, called into question the app’s use in Monday’s filing.
“In my matters during 16 years as an FBI agent, and three years in private practice, during which time I have interacted with dozens of companies both large and small, I have not personally observed a single company that employed an ephemeral messaging application such as TigerText for legitimate business communications by senior executives or in-house counsel,” Berglas stated in the Delaware filing. “In my opinion, based on information provided to me to date, CBS did not deploy the TigerText application in an acceptable business use manner.”
CBS pushed back in a statement, saying TigerText was “not developed or used for any nefarious or sinister communications as some have alleged.”