Electronic toy maker Vtech hacked

The Learning Lodge is used to download content like games to VTech devices.

The personal data of over 200,000 children was exposed after VTech, which sells electronic learning products, had its app store database, Learning Lodge, hacked. The company has asserted that the database does not contain credit card details. The information stolen from the toy maker’s website affects families from all over the world, including the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Latin America, Hong Kong, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

As millions of Americans head to online stores for Black Friday, one company is having a problem keeping its customers’ information safe.

The database contains customer data including name, email address, password, IP address, mailing address and download history. An unidentified hacker was able to extract almost 5 million credentials from the website of children’s toy manufacturer Vtech, according to an exclusive report from Motherboard. VTech does not process or store any customer credit card data on the Learning Lodge website.

“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”.

Vtech publicly announced the hack this morning, though it completely failed to mention just how severe the hack was, or how many people were affected by the attack. The company did not state that the passwords were encrypted or that the breach would expose the identity of the kids.

In a email to consumers, the business said: ” Upon acquiring the unexpected access a thorough analysis, which engaged an extensive check of the affected site was instantly performed by us and execution of measures to protect against further strikes”.

The company’s statement said that it began investigating after it received an inquiry about a breach from a journalist on November 23.

VTech was not available for immediate comment.