Whether hackers find it is easy to hack kid’s toy or they like
such toys so much that they have been targeting those things now and then.
Recently, VTech, a Hong Kong global supplier of electronic
learning products from infancy to preschool and the world's largest manufacturer
of cordless phones, app store database hacked by “unauthorized access”.
The customers can download games, e-books and other content
on to their Vtech devices from that app stores.
The company made it public on November 27 via a post that the
names, home and email addresses, security questions and answers and other
information of millions of families had been breached from a top toymaker's
database on 14 November.
“An unauthorized party accessed VTech customer data housed
on our Learning Lodge app store database on November 14, 2015 HKT. Learning
Lodge allows our customers to download apps, learning games, e-books and other
educational content to their VTech products,” the firm wrote in the post.
However, the firm has not provided exact number of victims
of the hack.
After discovering the unauthorized access, the company
started an investigation, which involved a comprehensive check of the affected
site and implementation of measures to defend against further attacks.
“Our customer database contains general user profile
information including name, email address, encrypted password, secret question
and answer for password retrieval, IP address, mailing address and download
history,” it added.
The company has clarified that the database does not contain
any credit card information of the customers.
“VTech does not process nor store any customer credit card
data on the Learning Lodge website. To complete the payment or check-out
process of any downloads made on the Learning Lodge website, our customers are
directed to a secure, third party payment gateway,” the post read.
Furthermore, the customer database does not contain any
personal identification data (such as ID card numbers, Social Security numbers
or driving license numbers).
The investigation is still going on. The firm is looking for
additional ways to strengthen Learning Lodge database security.