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Users of Child Surveillance App TeenSafe Suffer Data Breach

posted by janrinok on Monday May 21 2018, @06:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the designed-to-keep-them-safe dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

ZDNet reports

A server stored teenagers' Apple ID email addresses and plaintext passwords [...] At least one server used by an app for parents to monitor their teenagers' phone activity has leaked tens of thousands of accounts of both parents and children.

[...] the Los Angeles, Calif.-based company left its servers, hosted on Amazon's cloud, unprotected and accessible by anyone without a password.

[...] The database stores the parent's email address associated with TeenSafe, as well as their corresponding child's Apple ID email address. It also includes the child's device name -- which is often just their name -- and their device's unique identifier. The data contains the plaintext passwords for the child's Apple ID. Because the app requires that two-factor authentication is turned off, a malicious actor viewing this data only needs to use the credentials to break into the child's account to access their personal content data.

"Technology has brought with it a world your child might not be ready for," the company tells us in a video. "Begin a free trial today!"

TeenSafe home page (archives and more archives)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:45AM (2 children)

    by tftp (806) on Tuesday May 22 2018, @01:45AM (#682491) Homepage
    Many parents work 2 jobs each and rarely see their children (stores, a ready source of cheap jobs, work 7 days a week, sometimes 24 hr.) Most parents cannot hire servants to look for the kids. Manual tracking their kids' phone and internet activity is not on their radar. That's how and why companies sell teensafe apps. As a bonus, kids learn to live in a surveillance society and be happy about it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @02:39AM (#682507)

    > Many parents work 2 jobs each

    Can't speak for others, but this (too busy, no time to be a good parent) was one of several things that went into my decision to not have children. Now that I'm nearing retirement, I'm not regretting that decision yet.

    I did pick up a "rent-a-kid" along the way, SO's kid from previous marriage is on disability (age 31, can't work a steady job due to intermittent health issues) and lives with us.

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:27PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:27PM (#682669) Journal

    The best thing you can do for your kids is to have a stay at home parent. The unfortunate thing is that society / work / economy makes that extremely difficult nowadays.

    It seems like almost everything has more or less turned into a Spy app. With Android and Microsoft leading the charge. There aren't really many options. It's also getting much harder to just do without. You don't "have to" file your taxes electronically, pay your bills online, have a cellphone, a credit card, or an e-mail address. Things do get a bit difficult, if you go against the grain at all points, though. The even more unfortunate thing is that wouldn't necessarily protect you from something like the Equifax breach, either.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"