It seems to come around quicker every year – the failure of so-called smart toys to meet the most basic of security requirements. Which? has discovered a bunch of sack fillers that dirtbags can use to chat to your kids this Christmas.
Back in 2017, the consumer group found toys with security problems relating to network connections, apps or other interactive features. The results of its latest round of testing show manufacturers are struggling to improve standards.
Working with security researchers NCC Group, Which? found a karaoke machine that could transmit audio from anyone passing within Bluetooth range because of its unsecured connection. It found walkie-talkies from VTech which anyone with their own set of similar equipment could connect to over a 200-metre range. It also found a Mattel-backed games portal which appeared to be unmoderated, allowing users to upload their own games with content inappropriate for children.
Ken Munro, security researcher with consultancy Pen Test Partners, said that although there was no evidence the vulnerabilities revealed by Which? had not been used by nefarious characters to contact children, parents should still beware of toys that do not meet minimum standards.
"The reason we don't hear of these attacks is they are local: it would be one parent at a time. Is it still worrying? Yes, I don't like the idea of this thing being unsecured," he said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:46PM (7 children)
Walkie talkies have traditionally not been secure comms.
That complaint in the summary is not warranted.
(Score: 2) by progo on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:57PM (2 children)
I found this immediately and determined the source is not credible because of it. Came here to comment, and oh look! This issue is the FIRST comment!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:52PM (1 child)
Ohhhhh, I dunno 'bout that. We could argue that walkie talkies have always been reasonably secure. I mean, they can't talk off-frequency (very far, anyway) nor can the receive off-frequency (very far, again). They're "secure" enough that they should never bother a ham radio operator, or interfere with television/radio reception, or be noticed by police scanners. You have to have "similar equipment" to talk to them, or listen to them. And, unlike more powerful radio equipment, any interloper has to be within a very short range. Some kid in Fresno can't interfere with or snoop on a conversation in - well, anywhere outside his neighborhood in Fresno.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 13 2019, @03:17AM
Of course, during the CB craze, you couldn't walk more than 5 feet in a discount store without finding the needed 'similar equipment' for cheap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @05:04PM (2 children)
Yeah, this. Back in the early 80s I had analog walkie-talkies from RadioShack.
Some old dude got on with us and told us that we were on a restricted FCC
channel. I don't know if we were or not, but I just said, "fuck the FCC" because
who knows who that dude was, LOL. We got tired of playing with the walkie-talkies
after a while, and that dude never bothered us. In retrospect, I should have maybe
asked him some technical stuff like what freq he thought he was on, but I was a kid
and it was more fun to shock an adult. There's always a chance they were defective
and we *were* on the wrong frequency, but I'll never know. The play potential of
those things was limited because in most cases we could just make phone calls
or walk over to the other guy's house. They were big and klunky too.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @06:19PM
IIRC walkie-talkies were on CB channel 14 back then and only had 1/4 watt or less of power. CB radios were capped at 4 watts or 16 watts if on SSB. The old guy harassing you must have been within 2-3 blocks from you, so it was probably a neighbor. You could take the walkie-talkie apart and change the frequency by ordering a different crystal from Radio Shack and soldering it in place of the stock crystal. The only restricted channel was CB channel 9 which was for emergencies. Later CB radios had a PLL chip that you could add switches to for an extra 20 illegal channels out of the normal CB range. Marco 100 watt amps could be bought for $100 back then and would bleed over to TVs, radios, alarm systems, and anything else with an antenna.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:09PM
Good for you for taking the high road. As a kid, I would have farted into the handset.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:30PM
Actually reading TFA, the problem is that unlike the walkie talkies of our childhood (which were generally single channel low power CB radios), these actually claim to be secure and encrypted on the box. They would have been better off not making inflated claims they couldn't back up.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:56PM (5 children)
Island of MisfIoT toys.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:58PM
Next year's smart toys will all hack each other's vulnerabilities and unmoderated web sites.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @08:04PM (3 children)
...and to make them even more insecure, everybody stop talking when one is brought into the room.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @09:10PM (2 children)
DoD banned Furbies ~20 years ago anywhere in the building because they had some kind of a learning ability. They thought they could have been used for spying even though they weren't Internet connected.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday December 13 2019, @02:28AM
So many reasons to ban -- and buy [queenofwands.net] them.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 13 2019, @03:37AM
The deeper story is more that they feared it would be too easy to undetectably modify a Furby to act as a spying device. Understandably, they have a bit of an aversion to anything microphone like that they haven't thoroughly vetted, and that much effort wasn't worth it just to allow toys in the building.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday December 13 2019, @02:30AM
I mean, that's kind of why they look like stuffed animals with sad eyes. They just need a few hugs and they'll be fine.