Children’s Photos Among Data Stolen in Hack of Toy Maker VTech

The hack impacted worldwide users of VTech’s app store, Learning Lodge, which has been temporarily shut down while an investigation is ongoing.

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Parents with VTech accounts are encouraged to change the passwords they used and, if parents used the same password on other accounts, to change those as well. The hacker was also able to obtain chat logs, images of children and their parents through the company’s Kid Connect service, besides obtaining details of the children. If the data itself is not secured, it is at risk of theft irrespective of access controls and firewalls and breach after breach has proven this beyond any doubt, he said.

The breach took place on November 14 and was discovered 10 days later.

What information was exposed in the hack?

The compromised data includes 4.8 million customer email addresses, names and weakly hashed passwords of adult registered users.

The affected database doesn’t contain any credit card numbers or personal identification information such as Social Security or driver’s license numbers, VTech says. It involved customer data stored on the company’s Learning Lodge app store database.

Is Vtech contacting affected customers?

Thanks to a security breach at toy maker VTech, that nightmare just became a reality for thousands of parents. “Hackers are likely to trade the stolen data as well as try to trick customers into revealing further personal details using targeted phishing emails”, said Check Point UK regional director Simon Moor.

The hacker shared a sample of 3,832 image files with Motherboard for verification purposes, but he also said he doesn’t intend to publish or sell the data.

On its website, VTech describes itself as the number one “player” in infant toys in Britain, France, Germany and Spain, and tops globally when it comes to electronic learning products for children.

It’s infuriating to me to think that my children’s personal information has been hacked because of the information that Vtech requires you to fill out before you can download books and games on its online app store.