Children Movement Tracking Smart-Watch have Vulnerabilities Allowing Hacking

Hackers have found a way for hacking certain SMART watch which's designed for reading the movements of a child so con persons can detect their location else establish contact with them. Parents in United Kingdom are using one GPS-based gadget namely Kid's Watcher Plus from MiSafes for knowing where their children are moving, while talk with them remotely.

Security investigators have discovered serious vulnerabilities within the gadget which also allow unencrypted data. Exploiting these vulnerabilities enable hackers to take down software which traces the movements of children, tap into their conversations as well as dial to talk to them by posing as their parents. Telegraph.co.uk posted this, November 15, 2018.

Introduced during 2015, the MiSafes smart-watches have a price tag of 9 dollars when bought online. These watches are special in that they've a GPS feature that help parents make one "safe zone" while get a sound notification incase their kid goes outside that zone. It's also possible to begin one conversation through one call to their kid. However, the security investigators did a swap putting their own caller number in place of the parents' and ring as from the respective "Dad" or "Mum."

The researchers Alan Monie and Ken Munro belonging to Buckingham-based Pen Test Partners a security company learnt about the smart-watch's existence at the time their friend purchased one such gadget to use on his son previously in 2018. Munro explains how by utilizing software that may be easily available any paedophile could utilize 'prank call' applications for posing as the kid's parents. He tells he managed accessing children's profile particulars, notably name, gender, birth-date, photograph, height and weight.

There were more instances of smart watches targeted for children that contained security flaws thus highlighted the Norwegian Consumer Council in 2017. According to this council, the MiSafes gadgets seemed as even more troublesome compared to the instances it had found.

Digital services acting director Gro Mette Moen of the regulatory council pointed out the unsecured nature of MiSafes watches. He advised people not to purchase these watches till when the manufacturers could prove the security standards and features of the product as satisfactory.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/20/2018