The Hong Kong based toy manufacturer VTech, is a recent victim of a data breach. VTech’s database was breached on November 14. In the breach, VTech’s online platform the Learning Lodge app store was affected, which is connected to a variety of the brand’s devices. A breach of this kind is different to the majority of companies, because of its impact on children, in addition to their parents.
According to an article on Motherboard, “4.8 million customer email addresses, names and weakly hashed passwords of adult registered users. It also includes the gender, first name and birth dates of more than 200,000 children.” Additionally, Motherboard allegedly spoke with the anonymous fraudster that claims, “VTech left other sensitive data exposed on its servers, including kids’ photos and chat logs between children and parents.”
While health care, financial businesses and more are common targets for fraudsters, the VTech data breach shows that anyone can be a victim. This is not the typical breach of stolen credit cards and driver’s license information. In the VTech breach, these children were not on actual cell phones with providers or computers directly connected to the Internet.
This breach can be concerning for people, especially with the upcoming holiday season. Not only do consumers have to worry about their information being compromised while they are shopping for toys, there are risks even after they get toys and other electronics home.
It is essential that companies that create electronic devices, specifically children’s toys assure that their servers are secure and establish procedures to maintain the highest level of safety. The breach is also a reminder to retail businesses of the risks of holiday shopping in-store and online.
To ensure that consumers are safe, the manufacturers, retailers and more have to safeguard data. EVS offers a variety of solutions for retail-focused companies, which include ID verification, authentication question generator and more.
