It's the holiday season you might be looking for toys for your kids that aren't just fun, but also educational.
Something that teaches them about
computers, the Internet, coding, maybe even cloud services. There are a lot of
options out there and some of those options are scary. First let's talk about
the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things or IOT is a name that we have for
all of the devices that connect to the internet but then aren't computers.
IOT devices are inherently insecure. They come with default passwords, easy to
guess passwords or no password at all. It's really easy for even a novice
hacker to access and break into an IOT device. Then, there's the Shoadan Network.
This is a search engine for IOT devices that allows anyone from criminals to vulnerability researchers
to find device, like web cameras, that are connected to the Internet and not protected by a password.
This is what appears to be a dog kennel in Green Bay, Wisconsin a webcam somewhere within that facility.
There are real consequences to not being mindful of how vulnerable your
children's devices are. The Mozilla Foundation has rated some of the most
popular children's items and its privacy not included lists this year. The privacy
not included list is a guide for consumers to help them choose the most
secure devices. This year you can find on the list all the most popular children's
toys including the Internet connected robots, coding toys, drones and more.
So take this Fire 7 tablet for kids. It has a lot of security controls that parents do love. They can control what
kinds of apps kids can download, the websites they can visit. At the same time it still has a camera it still has audio
capabilities and, if it's attacks remotely, it can be used to spy on your kids.
Another popular holiday item for kids this year, smartwatches. This is a great
example, it's very easy to use. It has video, photos, audio capabilities and within minutes your kids are running
around the house taking lots of video footage and camera footage and you need to be mindful of where that footage is going.
Furby's a really popular item is holiday season too. In order to use it you
need to download an app and that tracks your child's habits and their location as well.
Of course this is not the first time the Internet connected toys have caused a problem.
Doll: "I know that your Mom's name is Allison."
My Friend Cayla was a children's doll that connected to the Internet via an app and it served as a sort of paired
down Alexa device. So you can ask it questions and it would search the internet find an answer and come back to you with it.
Girl: What's this? Doll: The Eiffel Tower in France.
In 2017, Germany banned the toy calling at a concealed espionage device and they encourage
parents to destroy it. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. also said they
were concerned about the dolls ability to record the voices of children. A new
complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission claims talking toys connected
to the internet like the popular my friend Kayla could be spying on your children.
Then, there was the cloud pet this was a stuffed animal marketed towards families with one parent who traveled
a lot, so that the parent and child could communicate with each other via messages stored on a cloud server.
The cloud pets device had a number of problems. Researchers found that you
could listen in to conversations going on inside the home or plant messages on
the cloud pets device. One of the cloud pets databases was actually hacked and
parents found those precious parent-child messages ransom back to them by criminals. Yikes!
So if you're looking for connected toys this holiday season here are three tips.
First check out Mozilla's privacy not included list. There you'll find a lot of the toys you might be considering
this holiday season for your kids and the pros and cons of each. Second, treat
your family kind of like a company does. Do a risk assessment decide what kind of
privacy risks you're willing to take in order to have an educational toy in the
house and which ones you're not. Third, check your security settings. Check
location tracking, your video recording, capabilities and your audio recording capabilities of all of your toys.
I personally do what Mark Zuckerberg and cover up every video camera in the house.