Sanrio is a Japanese company that produces ‘cute’ apparel products targeted towards girls. They are the Japanese licensee of Hallmark Greeting Cards and the Peanuts characters, but their most successful brand, Hello Kitty, was developed by the company in 1974. I didn’t realize quite how popular the brand was until I was on a trip to Jeju Island, Korea this year and I drove by an unbelievable Hello Kitty Museum. Beyond the unlimited Hello Kitty merchandise (think Yogurt in the merchandising scene from Spaceballs. “Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book…Spaceballs-the Flamethrower. (dink dink dink)”, Hello Kitty has successful animated shows, games, and theme parks. Yes, theme parks, whole theme parks dedicated to Hello Kitty.

The breach on Sanrio brands included 3.3 million users full names, birth dates, email addresses, encrypted passwords, password reset questions, and answers. This is the second hack in a month targeting children’s data. VTech recently announced a breach of near 5 million parents data, and over 6 million children’s profiles (including pictures). Here’s more information on the VTech hack, and how it could have been prevented.

Business owners and parents must take ownership of damage from these attacks targeted towards companies hold kids data. From a parent’s point of view, don’t let your kids use their information online. Develop safe, dummy accounts for website registration, and track, control, and block your kids from sites that you do not want them to visit. We highly recommend using technology to help. RedMorph.com is a product developed by a dad worried about companies tracking his daughters internet usage, and it can probably help you. For business owners, it’s no secret that companies are being targeted every daily. Our training at ISE is a great place to start. Train your employees to protect company information, and track and control usage to ensure customer and company data is not at risk.

Sanrio has not disclosed the reason the attack, or how the hackers gained access to the database. Subscribe to our blog and you’ll be the first to know how the breach occurred, and how it could have been prevented – part of our regular series on new hacks.

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