Risk Mitigation Strategies for Mobile Wi-Fi Robot Toys from Online Pedophiles

Yong, Siew; Lindskog, Dale; Ruhl, Ron; Zavarsky, Pavol

doi:10.1109/passat/socialcom.2011.194

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Previous efforts have studied COPPA and children's apps from various perspectives. Several researchers have analyzed a range of threats to minors in online social media platforms [56,85], websites [10,14], and smart toys [58,90,91], as well as the appropriateness of inapp ads targeting children [17]. Previous work also examined risks posed by third-party components bundled in children's apps, with a focus on targeted advertisements [11,53].…”

Section: Children's Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale

Reyes

Wijesekera

Reardon

et al. 2018

Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies

128

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We present a scalable dynamic analysis framework that allows for the automatic evaluation of the privacy behaviors of Android apps. We use our system to analyze mobile apps’ compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), one of the few stringent privacy laws in the U.S. Based on our automated analysis of 5,855 of the most popular free children’s apps, we found that a majority are potentially in violation of COPPA, mainly due to their use of thirdparty SDKs. While many of these SDKs offer configuration options to respect COPPA by disabling tracking and behavioral advertising, our data suggest that a majority of apps either do not make use of these options or incorrectly propagate them across mediation SDKs. Worse, we observed that 19% of children’s apps collect identifiers or other personally identifiable information (PII) via SDKs whose terms of service outright prohibit their use in child-directed apps. Finally, we show that efforts by Google to limit tracking through the use of a resettable advertising ID have had little success: of the 3,454 apps that share the resettable ID with advertisers, 66% transmit other, non-resettable, persistent identifiers as well, negating any intended privacy-preserving properties of the advertising ID.

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Section: Children's Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale

Reyes

Wijesekera

Reardon

et al. 2018

Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By deinition, robots are equipped with the ability to sense, process, and record the world around them. These concerns about privacy problems can go as far as making robotic toys tools for pedophiles: "Because of their built-in cameras, microphones, speakers, and mobile capabilities, all of which can be controlled remotely, mobile Wi-Fi robot toys can pose a risk to families with children when used remotely, an atribute that can be exploited by online pedophiles who want to exploit young children online" [16]. This is not a distant disturbing possibility, it is happening right now.…”

Section: Privacy Risks Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybersecurity of Robotics and Autonomous Systems: Privacy and Safety

Lera¹,

Llamas²,

Guerrero³

et al. 2017

Robotics - Legal, Ethical and Socioeconomic Impacts

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Robots and autonomous systems in general are set to sufer similar cybersecurity problems that computers have been facing for decades. This is not only worrying for critical tasks such as those performed by surgical, or military robots but also for household robots such as vacuum cleaners or for teleconference robots compromise privacy and safety of their owners. What will happen if these robots are hacked? This study presents a survey on the cybersecurity atacks associated with service robots, and as a result, a taxonomy that classiies the risks faced by users when using service robots, distinguishing between security and safety threads, is presented. We also present the robot software development phase as one the most relevant ones for the security of robots.

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“…Recent high-profile hacks of smart toys [1], [5], have drawn considerable press attention to the privacy and security risks of Internet-connected devices for children [6], [7]. The academic community has responded to consumer concern with studies auditing smart toys [3], [8]- [10], analyzing children's and parents' interactions with smart toys [11], [12], and proposing technical and legal frameworks or requirements for improving smart toy security and privacy [13]- [17]. This work fits into the general methodological framework of previous toy security audits in that it systematically explores vulnerabilities in consumer smart toys, provides proof-of-concept exploits, and suggests remediation techniques.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security and Privacy Analyses of Internet of Things Children’s Toys

Chu

Apthorpe

Feamster

2019

IEEE Internet Things J.

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This paper investigates the security and privacy of Internet-connected children's smart toys through case studies of three commercially-available products. We conduct network and application vulnerability analyses of each toy using static and dynamic analysis techniques, including application binary decompilation and network monitoring. We discover several publicly undisclosed vulnerabilities that violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) as well as the toys' individual privacy policies. These vulnerabilities, especially security flaws in network communications with first-party servers, are indicative of a disconnect between many IoT toy developers and security and privacy best practices despite increased attention to Internetconnected toy hacking risks.

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Risk Mitigation Strategies for Mobile Wi-Fi Robot Toys from Online Pedophiles

Cited by 15 publications

References 2 publications

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale

“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?” Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale

Cybersecurity of Robotics and Autonomous Systems: Privacy and Safety

Security and Privacy Analyses of Internet of Things Children’s Toys

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