Popular Chinese toymaker VTech has been hacked, with personal information of both parents and children having been compromised.
VTech's app store, called Learning Lodge, features learning games and other educational tools for children. According to some sources, the hack compromised as many as 4.8 million accounts.
So how could this happen? Well, it seems as though VTech's security methods were not as up to date as they should have been. The database that was hacked included information like names, emails, mailing addresses, password, and so on. The passwords, according to reports, were encrypted using an outdated hacking algorithm, which means that plenty of simple passwords will be easily cracked. That could lead to hackers being able to gain control of other accounts.
Not only that, but considering the fact that the hack involved around 200,000 children's personal information, hackers reached a new level of strategy. It's one thing for adults to have their personal information stolen while they're trying to cheat on their spouses on Ashley Madison - it's another thing entirely to have personal information stolen from an educational tool for children.
VTech said that it is investigating the attack and has taken measures to prevent attacks such as this from happening again. The information stolen includes data from the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Latin America, Hong Kong, China, Australia and New Zealand, according to VTech.
Based on reports, this is the fourth largest consumer data breach ever, with larger ones including the Ashley Madison hack that exposed information of 30 million individuals and the Target data breach that saw the hacking of 110 million customers' information.
