On Saturday, November 27, 2015, the customer data of VTech, an educational toys company, was accessed by an 'unauthorized party,’ the company confirmed. Moreover, the data breach occured on November 14th and was discovered on the 24th.
The unauthorized access of the company’s data was accordingly on the Learning Lodge app store. It is a collection of VTech’s educational toys. Moreover, upon discovery of such fraudulent act, the company immediately conducted a thorough investigation. This involved a comprehensive evaluation of the affected site and implementation of security measures to defend against any further attacks.
What is alarming, though, is that the data affected also stores information of kids which includes name, genders and birthdates. 'In total about 5 million customer accounts and related kids profiles worldwide are affected.'
According to the published statement by VTech, the customer database that was accessed 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 is a good thing that the database accessed did not contain any highly-confidential information such as personal identification data (such as ID card numbers, Social Security numbers or driving license numbers) and any credit card information.
The company also emphasized that it does not process nor store any customer credit card data on the Learning Lodge website.Vtech’s statement cleared that the payment or check-out process of any downloads made on the Learning Lodge website are directed to a secure, third party payment gateway.
VTech’s Learning Lodge and several websites have been suspended temporarily for 'precautionary measures’ and for thorough security assessment and fortification.
What do you think about this data breach on VTech? What may be the reason of the perpetrators in accessing the customer data of VTech? Are you alarmed that the data contained kids' information?
