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Should you keep your kids away from connected toys?

How dangerous is a teddy bear or a doll? In the Internet of Things era, it's not an idle question but one for parents and regulators to ponder seriously.

By Leonid Bershidsky | Updated on February 28, 2017
Like most of the data we voluntarily donate to internet companies, our kids' data probably won't be used for an evil purpose. But one breach is enough to change that, and to plunge a family into hell. (Photo: Shutterstock)

(Bloomberg View) – How dangerous is a teddy bear or a doll? In the Internet of Things era, it’s not an idle question but one for parents and regulators to ponder seriously.

On Monday, Troy Hunt, the cybersecurity expert who maintains the “Have I been pwned?” database of major breaches affecting the clients of internet businesses, revealed a problem with CloudPets, a series of cuddly toys made by a U.S. company called Spiral Toys. The toys allow parents to talk with their kids remotely. The conversations were recorded and stored — along with users’ encrypted passwords — on an unprotected server that belonged to a Romanian company called mReady. The passwords were easy to break.

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