Here's how strangers might be spying on your kids.
Smartwatches are becoming the latest trend and even children are asking for one. While the parents are not getting them something as expensive as the Apple Watch, there are cheaper alternatives available on Amazon. According to a recent report by Rapid7, Amazon is selling some smartwatches designed for children that allow hackers to spy on them. Here's how you can be safe.
Rapid7, Cybersecurity researchers, has discovered there are security flaws and vulnerabilities on three different smartwatches that they bought off Amazon. These smartwatches are really cheap and are designed in such a way that they target only children. These smartwatches, once associated with a number, can give complete control to hackers with simple tricks. The watches can help them track the child's whereabouts using the inbuilt GPS function.
Apart from the location information, these hackers can even get access to the built-in microphone or camera and live stream video and even hear what the people are talking.
On the Rapid7 blog post, Tod Beardsley said, "Given an unchanged default password and a lack of SMS filtering, it is possible that an attacker with knowledge of the smartwatch phone number could assume total control of the device, and therefore use the tracking and voice chat functionality with the same permissions as the legitimate user (typically, a parent)."
While the research took place using the Amazon US store, it might be safe to say that these kinds of smartwatches have not hit the Indian market yet. However, we would still recommend staying away from such products as a user or as a parent.
