Tech-based toy hack takes cybercrime to a new low.
Hong Kong-based VTech, a major maker of tech-based toys, has reported that it was hacked in November, a revelation that is alarming security experts and parents. As part of the cyberattack, hackers accessed information like passwords, IP addresses, physical addresses as well as the gender and ages of children, photos of children, and some chat data, though no credit-card information was compromised. The breach affected some 6 million children.
The company shut down some of its web operations as a precautionary measure, but this attack comes at a time when tech-based toys are gaining popularity this holiday shopping season. Particularly troubling, according to The New York Times, the hack involves the identities of children.
It is unclear what motivated the breach, according to Reuters, or whether the hack has resulted in any identity theft to date. It serves as a serious warning for consumers who don’t understand how the technology exposes their children via their toys.
“The last thing you would ever imagine is that a toy manufacturer would lose your child’s identity,” Liam, O’Murchu, a Symantec Corp malware researcher told Reuters. “This shows that it’s harder and harder to do things safely online.”
The news of this hack, involving the identities of children, comes at a time when tech-based toys are among the most popular this holiday season, and at a point when toy sales are poised to see the best numbers in more than ten years, according to NPD Group, spurred in large part by improved technology.
"The selection is much greater than in the past," Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of online toy review site TTPM, told the Associated Press. "Technology is much better in the toy aisle, and it's really inspiring young kids to play but also bringing older kids to things like radio control and role play items."
As consumers, we have become somewhat numbed by the reports of retail data breaches, and while the incidents attract our attention, they are somewhat anticipated. But when breaches reach our children, consumers will stop and take notice. Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt says that this hack could make parents think twice about how chip-embedded toys could put the identities of their children at risk.
“When it’s hundreds of thousands of children including their names, genders and birthdates, that’s off the charts,” Hunt wrote on his blog regarding the VTech hack. “When it includes their parents as well – along with their home address – and you can link the two and emphatically say 'Here is 9 year old Mary, I know where she lives and I have other personally identifiable information about her parents (including their password and security question)', I start to run out of superlatives to even describe how bad that is.”
