VTech Breach; Popular Learning Lodge Site Down For Fortification

Unfortunately, children can be victims of data breaches too. This week a breach of the popular Chinese toy manufacturer, VTech’s Learning Lodge site reminds us to stay aware of protecting our children’s’ identities as well as our own during the busy holiday buying and giving season. In a statement posted on the VTech company website, the breach of an estimated five million customers likely occurred around November 14 of this year.

Parents can create profiles for their children when purchasing VTech toys. Included in the Learning Lodge profiles are the names, ages, genders, and parents’ names, email addresses, download histories and other details. The company admitted that while that information was retrieved by the intruders, payment card information, social security numbers, or driver’s license numbers were not because it is not stored with VTech.

The ways the intrusion occurred could have been one or more exploits against several security weakness that security expert Troy Hunt determined existed on the company’s website. These included failure to properly store passwords, the lack of SSL-protected communications, extensive use of the ever-vulnerable Adobe Flash, SQL injection vulnerabilities, and improperly encrypted sensitive data.

When creating online profiles it is important to make sure the websites are secure. Take an extra few minutes to ensure the padlock is shown on the website and the “https:” precedes the address of the site. If it doesn’t, do not continue to create the profile because there is no guarantee the information will be protected.

In addition, use unique passwords for every online account, even for the kids. Make them strong and ensure they include a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, special characters, are at least eight characters long, and are not dictionary or easy-to-guess words.

Keep all computers and mobile devices and anything kids use, such as the game consoles and smart TVs, updated with the latest security and critical patches. Also, ensure anti-malware is installed on computers and mobile devices and that it is also kept up-to-date.

With all the electronic toys and apps available for kids these days, it is more important than ever to take responsibility and check for the security of those products before handing them off to the kids. Take a little time to start teaching them about security as well. If they going to use electronics to learn, it isn’t too early to start letting their brains soak up good safety while learning their ABCs.

VTech stated it has implemented additional security measures. However, as of writing the Learning Lodge website has been taken offline temporarily for “thorough security assessment and fortification.” Customers affected are located in the U.S., Germany, Spain, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, France, China, New Zealand, and Australia.