This Teddy Bear Recorded Millions Of Voice Messages, Which Got Leaked

In the age of the Internet of Things, households are now more vulnerable to data breaches than ever before. Take the case of the toys that were made by a company called CloudPets, which can receive and play messages by parents to their children and vice versa. It was meant to be a thoughtful item that would provide both parties comfort when away from each other. Unfortunately, this led to the leak of over 2 million voice messages.

Recently, Germany decided to ban a doll that could answer questions and record data on unsuspecting users for fear of exactly what is happening with CloudPets now. In the previous case, the dolls only posed a security risk and didn’t come close to having the kind of impact that the plush toys equipped with listening devices are having on cyber security.

In any case, the dolls affected over 800,000 users and recorded the voices of mostly children, The Huffington Post reports. The reason for the leak is because of the company’s carelessness in storing the information of users, which happened to include passwords and usernames. The server didn’t have the proper security protocols that would have shielded it, allowing even amateur hackers to have a chance of finding the information.

Troy Hunt was one of the first to notice and write about the vulnerability, and according to him, the dolls from CloudPets collected audio files during intimate moments between parent and child that should never have been leaked anywhere. More to the point, these are the types of situations which shouldn’t ever be recorded without the parents’ permission in the first place.

The most alarming aspect of this development, however, is the fact that strangers can now send messages to children through the plush toys. A parent with the username Handsome Neil posted an alarming video on Twitter with the caption “Hey @CloudPets someone named S. Atan keeps sending messages to my kids' cloud pets and the app won't let me block him. Please help.”

Parents who are still in possession of these toys are highly advised to destroy them immediately. Afterward, they should contact CloudPets to have their data erased.