VTech Data Breach Affects Nearly 5 Million Customers

VTech, a global supplier of electronic learning toys and products for children, confirmed a data breach Monday after an unauthorized party accessed information on Learning Lodge, the company’s app store database.

The affected database doesn’t contain any credit card numbers, or personally identification information such as Social Security or driver’s license numbers, VTech says. However, the data obtained by the hackers could potentially be combined with additional personal information on the victims and then used to create detailed profiles.

The company went on to confirm that its “database also stores kids information including name, genders and birthdates”.

A Chinese educational toy company with revenues of over US$2 billion has suffered a data breach where the personal information of five million customers, both parents and children, were stolen. Security experts who have reviewed the data say that it is possible to link children’s information with their parents’ data, thereby revealing the kids’ full addresses and other information.

VTech is hardly the only company going high-tech.

Their parents’ data included name, mailing address, email address, secret question and answer for password retrieval, IP address, download history and encrypted password.

KID FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY COMPANY VTech is entering the holiday season on perhaps one of two naughty lists after admitting that it has been the victim of a security breach that might have exposed some customer data. The anonymous hacker told the publication that she has no intention of publishing or selling the stolen data.

“Frankly, it makes me sick that I was able to get all this stuff”, the hacker allegedly said.

VTech has not commented on the images, explained why they were stored on the servers, or verified their existence. “Unless it’s our children’s identities, that’s a whole new level. We are committed to protecting our customer information and their privacy, to ensure against any such incidents in the future”, the company added in a statement.

If not for Motherboard’s investigation into the anonymous hacker’s claims, VTech might never have picked up on its servers’ vulnerabilities.