VTech hack exposes 5 million accounts, including kids' photos, chats

Not even kid's toys are safe from hackers. I'm Bridget Carey, this is your CNET update. If your kid owns a VTech learning toy, a hacker could know their names, birthdays, and where they live. The App store for VTech Learning Lodge was breached a little over two weeks ago, and according to a statement from VTech, this exposed the names, emails, passwords, mailing addresses, and download history For 5 million accounts. But it goes way beyond that. A hacker also was able to pull up the photos taken of kids and their parents, along with chats and audio recordings made with the Kid Connect service. That discovery comes from Motherboard, which was the first to report on the hack. Motherboard has been talking with the hacker involved. Who provided the proof. The hacked data also includes names, gender, and birthdays of more than 200,000 kids. The hacker reportedly found tens of thousands of photos on VTech's servers, and says there are no plans to publish or sell the data. Motherboard consulted with a cybersecurity expert on the breached data, and it appears That Vtech did not do enough to encrypt customer data or passwords to guard it from hackers. Vtech sells tons of kid learning toys like tablets, phones and even smart watches. It also sells baby monitors. When you have a company as big as Vtech not doing the basics when it comes to security and protecting your data It should show you we have a huge cybersecurity problem on our hands. Companies need to care to invest in security before they get hacked, not after. So what's more worrisome than your kid's toys getting hacked? How about flying delivery drones swarming the skies, because it's a future Amazon believes strongly in and the company has released a video showing off an new design for drones. That I can get a package to your door in 30 minutes or less. This prototype drone for prime air loads a shoe box size package from underneath the crack. It's lifted into its belly and then it's flying off to your home. Now what you're seeing here is actual footage from a working prototype. Amazon says, there are censors on board the drone to prevent the crack from hitting other things in the sky. Sky. When the craft gets near, you get an alert to make sure that your yard is clear for landing. And you have to put out a big plastic Amazon logo landing base so the drone knows where to drop your package. Amazon first started talking about delivery drones during the holiday shopping season of 2013. But this project will not be taking off in the real world until the US Federal Aviation Administration sets rules on how to handle commercial unmanned aircraft. And personally, I'm more curious to learn how Amazon plans to deal with neighbors that will shoot these drones out of the sky, because you know that's gonna happen. That's it for this tech news update And there's more at cnet.com. From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey. [MUSIC]