Smart watches called dangerous for children

Smartwatches made to monitor children have poor protection and can be dangerous to wearers. It is reported by the Bleeping Computer edition.

Journalists refer to the report of the company Dr. Web, which analyzed several popular devices. According to the authors, in most cases, wearable devices designed to monitor parents over their children have weak security and can be easily hacked.

So, in the popular Elari Kidphone 4G, they found three hidden modules that secretly transmit information about the movement of their carrier. By default, data transmission through the named interfaces occurs every eight hours, but the interval can be reconfigured. The company’s engineers are concerned that the device’s modules can be configured to install malicious applications.

The most affordable gadget in the collection – the Wokka Lokka Q50 tracker for $ 15 – was described by experts as a device with a weak password by default. The researchers also found that all data transmitted between the watch and the server is not encrypted. The Elari FixiTime Lite and Smart Baby Watch Q19 models also found the use of an unencrypted HTTP protocol, which attackers could potentially hack and find out the child’s movement history.

“Parents should be careful when buying cheap smartwatches for their kids because of the risks associated with connecting them to the Internet,” the experts said. Bleeping Computer reporters requested comment from device manufacturers but received no prompt response.

At the end of summer, representatives of M.Video-Eldorado announced that sales of smartwatches outstripped sales of fitness trackers for the first time. “About ten percent of the total volume of the segment was accounted for by children’s watches,” the specialists noted.