To support my firm’s corporate and social responsibility efforts, I volunteered to help NSPCC, a charity working in child protection, understand the Internet of Toys and its security and privacy implications.
I hope the efforts in this area will result in better policymaking and raise awareness among children and parents about the risks and threats posed by connected devices.
Toys are different from other connected devices not only because how they are normally used, but also who uses them.
For example, children may tell secrets to their toys, sharing particularly sensitive information with them. This, combined with often insufficient security considerations by the manufacturers, may be a cause for concern.
Apart from helping NSPCC in creating campaign materials and educating the staff on the threat landscape, we were able to suggest a high-level framework to assess the security of a connected toy, consisting of parental control, privacy and technology security considerations.
Cyber Security Leadership 