Last week, as soon as the 3.15 party was broadcast, terms such as "old sauerkraut" and "vermicelli that changed flavor" once rushed to the hot search, and food safety issues once again became a hot topic of discussion. At the same time, the issue of network information security has also become the "hardest hit area" of the party's exposure list.
Different from previous years, this year's evening party set up the "3.15 Information Security Laboratory" for the first time to conduct professional tests for the hidden dangers of information security in everyone's daily life. Among them, after testing, it has been highlighted and exposed, and there are security risks of children's smart watches.
Smart watches, hidden dangers
For a long time, children's smart watches with diverse functions, convenience and speed as the selling point are quite popular with parents and children. Real-time positioning, high-definition dual camera, face recognition, video calls... In the eyes of many parents, as long as the child wears a smart watch, he can monitor his movement at any time. However, such a "baby artifact" has many security loopholes, which is really gratifying and worrying.
We saw at the party that the laboratory tested a children's smartwatch that sold more than 100,000. The results show that the watch can continuously collect the child's movement trajectory through real-time positioning and malicious programs, and easily lock the child's range of activities; even the conversation content can be heard clearly by calling the microphone in the watch... The party said that this is also a common problem in children's smart watches on the market.
Why do children's smart watches, which are loved by children and trusted by parents, become a pair of eyes that are always peeping? According to technical personnel, the key is that the operating system of many children's smart watches is too old. For example, the watch operating system used in the party test does not have any permission management requirements, and after various APP installations, it is possible to take away various sensitive permissions such as positioning, address book, microphone, camera and so on without user authorization. The "back door" is wide open, which will naturally leave a safety hazard.
A "security artifact" is not safe
In fact, this is not the first time that CCTV has exposed the problems related to children's smart watches. In recent years, relevant reports have repeatedly pointed out that there are hidden dangers in the information security of children's smart watches, requiring parents to pay attention to them.
The reason is that with the increase in the demand of families for children's safety and timely communication, the children's smart watch market has ushered in an explosive period in recent years. This has also led to problems such as excessive marketing, lack of standards, and uneven quality in the entire industry.
Just as the so-called desire for speed is not achieved, seeing small profits is not a big thing. Among them, some companies without technical capabilities have rushed to the market. They generally entrust third parties to develop applications, rent public clouds, and use third-party map positioning technology, not only the data transmission is not encrypted, but the identity authentication is not strict.
Such a "rushed" children's smart watch, the quality can be imagined, and it is impossible to cope with network attacks. Once an unscrupulous person takes advantage of the above loopholes to take over the watch authority, it can accurately grasp the location of the watch, completely obtain the daily travel trajectory of the child, eavesdrop on parents and children, monitor, and even lead to abduction of children and extortion of parents.
Be vigilant and follow in real time
Smart watches that should guard children's safety have become hidden dangers around children, which is really surprising. However, it is not advisable to treat it as a "flood beast" because of choking on food. It is still necessary to make full use of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, and make appropriate use of its advantages of intelligence and convenience to serve parents and children.
So, how should parents buy a suitable smart watch for their children under the premise of ensuring information security?
1. Investigate the brand. Before buying children's smart watches, parents need to have a certain understanding of relevant brands and try to choose enterprise products with intellectual property rights and independent research and development teams. At present, there are many products in the children's smart watch market, and it is recommended that you buy the products of large brands and manufacturers to ensure the data security of smart watches.
Second, regular maintenance. Regular technology companies will generally regularly detect vulnerabilities and upgrade the system according to technological developments, parents should pay attention to the official update information of the product in time, and usually do a good job in the regular maintenance of children's smart watches.
3. Change the password. In daily use, parents should also improve their safety awareness and change the login password of children's smart watches from time to time.
At the same time, it should also be seen that not only children's smart watches have information security risks, but also the current intelligent devices for the children's market are emerging in an endless stream, such as children's intelligent companion robots, children's intelligent learning machines, etc., with audio, video, positioning functions. If you are not careful, you may also become a "leaker" of your child's privacy. What's more, some smart devices also receive bad information, causing infestation of children.
Parents should also be reminded that they must strengthen the supervision of children's browsing content, regularly check the use of children's smart devices at home, and protect the healthy growth of children.
Editor: Gao Jian