A smartwatch designed specifically for children lets unauthorized users take snapshots and listen in on conversations, a new report has found.
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The watch's manufacturer, Chinese technology company Qihoo 360, designed the watch's software to allow unauthorized monitoring, the report from security firm mnemonic said. The watch was "rebranded and sold to the European and US markets by Norwegian company Xplora, which claims to have sold more than 350,000 children's smartwatches worldwide," the report said.
"The new discovery of a backdoor in the Xplora smartwatch is troubling, but not surprising," Alvaro Cardenas, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an email interview. "A friendly interpretation is that it could have been a feature in development that would allow parents to take photos of their children or see their surroundings if a child was abducted.
"A more problematic interpretation is that the smartwatches could be used to spy on children. In either case, this functionality should not have remained in the final version of the smartwatch."
