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Thousands of Apple ID Passwords Leaked by Teen Phone Monitoring App Server
ZDNet reports that a server used by an app for parents to monitor their teenagers' phone activity has leaked tens of thousands of login credentials, including the Apple IDs of children.
The leaked data belonged to customers of TeenSafe, a "secure" monitoring app for iOS and Android that allows parents to view their child's text messages and location, call history, web browsing history, and installed apps.
The customer database was reportedly stored on two servers hosted by Amazon Web Services, where it remained unprotected and accessible without a password. The discovery was made by a U.K.-based security researcher specializing in public and exposed data, and the servers were only taken offline after ZDNet alerted the California-based company responsible for the TeenSafe app.
Compounding the lax security is the app's requirement that two-factor authentication is turned off for the child's Apple account so that parents can monitor the phone without consent. This means a malicious actor could potentially access a child's account using the login credentials that were stored on the exposed server.
TeenSafe counts over a million parents as customers, although the database was reportedly limited to 10,200 records gleaned from the past three months of customer usage. The company said it would continue to assess the situation and provide additional information to customers as soon as it became available.
The leaked data belonged to customers of TeenSafe, a "secure" monitoring app for iOS and Android that allows parents to view their child's text messages and location, call history, web browsing history, and installed apps.
The customer database was reportedly stored on two servers hosted by Amazon Web Services, where it remained unprotected and accessible without a password. The discovery was made by a U.K.-based security researcher specializing in public and exposed data, and the servers were only taken offline after ZDNet alerted the California-based company responsible for the TeenSafe app.
"We have taken action to close one of our servers to the public and begun alerting customers that could potentially be impacted," said a TeenSafe spokesperson told ZDNet on Sunday.The information in the exposed database included the email addresses of parents who used TeenSafe, the Apple ID email addresses of their children, and children's device name and unique identifier. Plaintext passwords for the children's Apple ID were also among the data set, despite claims on the company's website that it uses encryption to protect customer data.
Compounding the lax security is the app's requirement that two-factor authentication is turned off for the child's Apple account so that parents can monitor the phone without consent. This means a malicious actor could potentially access a child's account using the login credentials that were stored on the exposed server.
TeenSafe counts over a million parents as customers, although the database was reportedly limited to 10,200 records gleaned from the past three months of customer usage. The company said it would continue to assess the situation and provide additional information to customers as soon as it became available.
Tag: security
[ 154 comments ]
Top Rated Comments
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22 weeks ago
Jesus H, this product is abominable. True helicopter parent dystopian BS. Just let kids be kids!
22 weeks ago
If you’re in need to use such kind of apps to monitor your children you’re in problems anyway.
22 weeks ago
As I read these comments, it's easy to tell who are parent's and who are not.
To those who are not, you really have no basis to be criticizing a parent for monitoring their child's activities. As long as I am responsible for my children, I will do what I can to monitor and protect them even if that means they give up a little privacy.
To those who are not, you really have no basis to be criticizing a parent for monitoring their child's activities. As long as I am responsible for my children, I will do what I can to monitor and protect them even if that means they give up a little privacy.
22 weeks ago
Jesus H, this product is abominable. True helicopter parent dystopian BS. Just let kids be kids!
Just saying.
22 weeks ago
I guess there's nothing like having your privacy violated to prepare you for adulthood.
22 weeks ago
Jesus H, this product is abominable. True helicopter parent dystopian BS. Just let kids be kids!
Because of thir limited life experiences, kids will do stupid things. Monitoring apps have place, but they are certainly no substitution for the large investment of parental time it takes to mold a child into an adult.
22 weeks ago
What kind of parents spies on their children text messages? That’s just wrong on so many levels ... boundaries people. if you don’t trust them enough to use their own phone privately. Maybe look yourself in the mirror and question what you did wrong rasing them.
22 weeks ago
Its already concerning enough when you have login credentials that have been explicitly exposed, but especially with the sensitivity of when it involves children’s information.
22 weeks ago
Jesus H, this product is abominable. True helicopter parent dystopian BS. Just let kids be kids!
What you mean take their phones away totally and let them grow up, as children have done for the past couple of million years as well rounded, normal human beings, without worrying, and staying up and night due to what someone may say about them, or needing to broadcast their every action to social media for their friends to see?
Yes. Let's take the dam phones away and let them grow up as well adjusted people before the curse of the mobile phone it thrust into their lives.
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