vtech for other uses see vtec disambiguation vtech holdings ltd type public company trade dassehk 0303 industry electronics industry founded october 1976 42 years ago 197610 as video technology limitedheadquartershong kongarea servedworldwideproductsresidential phoneseducational toyselectronic manufacturing servicessmall to medium sized business phoneshotel phonescordless headsetsintegrated access devicebaby monitorrevenueus18989 million fy2014net incomeus2033 million fy2014number of employeesaround 30000websitewwwvtechcom vtech traditional chinese originally video technology limited is a hong kongbased global supplier of electronic learning products from infancy to preschool and the worlds largest manufacturer of cordless phones in november 2015 vtechs learning products app store learning lodge was compromised leading to the exposure of names addresses encrypted passwords and personal information of its customers including photos and chat logs name and listing the company was originally named video technology limited in reference to the companys first product a home video game console the company first listed in hong kong in june 1986 under the name video technology international holdings limited it was privatised and delisted from the stock exchange of hong kong limited in 1990 vtech obtained a primary listing on the london stock exchange in 1991 in 1992 the company relisted on the stock exchange of hong kong limited establishing a dual primary listing with london in 1993 the company established its american depositary receipt programme vtech delisted voluntarily from the london stock exchange on 7 october 2008 it also terminated its american depositary receipt programme with effect from 21 january 2011 history vtech has developed edutainment consoles since 1988 their first being the socrates vtech was founded in hong kong in october 1976 by two local entrepreneurs allan wong chiyun vtech initially focused on developing video games in 1977 the company created its first home tv game console a version of pong since only consumers in north america and europe could afford such items the company targeted primarily these markets the united kingdom was chosen as the first market for pong as hong kong and the uk used the same standard for television systems in 1978 the founders introduced led games they had developed to buyers from radioshack in the us which were sold under the radioshack brand vtech then began to build its own brand starting in the early 80s a line of electronic games would be manufactured vtech unveiled its first electronic learning product called lesson one at the new york toy fair in february 1980 laser computer next vtech made the video game console creativision vtech then branched out into personal computers including a series of ibm compatible pcs beginning in 1983 followed by apple ii compatible computers beginning in 1985 including a model called laser 128 vtech exited the personal computer market in 1997 due to tight competition in 1985 the united states federal communications commission fcc allocated the frequency band 900mhz to ism industrial scientific and medical devices taking advantage of this vtech began development on a cordless telephone using the 900mhz band and in 1991 introduced the worlds first fully digital 900mhz cordless telephone in 2000 to expand its cordless phone business vtech acquired the consumer telephone business of lucent technologies the acquisition also gave vtech the exclusive right for 10 years to use the att brand in conjunction with the manufacture and sale of wireline telephones and accessories in the united states and canada today vtechs core businesses remain cordless telephones and electronic learning products its contract manufacturing services which manufactures various electronic products on behalf of mediumsized companies has also become a major source of revenue the company has diversified geographically selling to north america europe asia latin america the middle east and africa 2015 data breach in november 2015 lorenzo bicchierai writing for vice magazines motherboard reported that vtechs servers had been compromised and the corporation was victim to a data breach which exposed personal data belonging to 63 million individuals including children who signed up for or utilized services provided by the company related to several products it manufactures bicchierai then reached out to information security researcher troy hunt to examine data provided by the attacker to bicchierai and to confirm if the leak was indeed authentic and not an internet hoax hunt examined the information and confirmed it appeared to be authentic hunt then dissected the data in detail and published the findings on his website according to hunt vtechs servers failed to utilize basic ssl encryption to secure the personal data in transit from the devices to vtechs servers that vtech stored customer information in unencrypted plaintext failed to securely hash or salt passwords the attack leveraged an sql injection to gain privileged root access to vtech servers once privileged access was acquired the attacker exfiltrated the data including some 190 gigabytes of photographs of children and adults detailed chat logs between parents and children which spanned over the course of years and voice recordings all unencrypted and stored in plain text the attacker shared some 3832 image files with the journalist for verification purposes and some redacted photographs were published by the journalist commenting on the leak the unnamed attacker expressed their disgust with being able to so easily obtain access to such a large trove of data saying frankly it makes me sick that i was able to get all this stuff vtech should have the book thrown at them and explained their rationale for going to the press was because they felt vtech would have ignored their reports and concerns vtech corporate security was unaware their systems had been compromised and the breach was first brought to their attention after being contacted by bicchierai prior to publication of the article upon notification the company took a dozen or so websites and services offline in an faq published by the company they explain some 4854209 accounts belonging to parents and 6368509 profiles belonging to children had been compromised the company further claims the passwords had been encrypted which is contrary to reports by the independent security researcher contacted by vice the company indicated they were working with unspecified local authorities mark nunnikhoven of trend micro criticized the companys handling of the incident and called their faq wishywashy corporate speak united states senators edward markey and joe barton cofounders of the bipartisan congressional privacy caucus issued an open letter to the company inquiring as to why and what kind of information belonging to children is stored by vtech and how they use this data security practices employed to protect that data if childrens information is shared or sold to thirdparties and how the company complies with the childrens online privacy protection act in february 2016 hunt publicized the fact that vtech had modified its terms and conditions for new customers so that the customer acknowledges and agrees that any information transmitted to vtech may be intercepted or later acquired by unauthorized parties in january 2018 the us federal trade commission fined vtech 650000 usd for the breach around 009 per victim core businesses electronic learning products elps vtech was among the pioneers of the elp industry beginning in 1980 with a unit designed to teach children basic spelling and mathematics today vtech is a leading global supplier of elps from infancy to preschool its vsmile tv learning system which was launched in 2004 established what the company calls platform products as an important category within its elps telecommunication tel products this sections factual accuracy may be compromised due to outofdate information please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information march 2017 vtech introduced the worlds first 900mhz and 58ghz cordless phones in 1991 and 2002 respectively according to mza ltd the company is the worlds largest manufacturer of cordless telephones in north america vtech is the largest player in the industry according to marketwise consumer insights llc selling both att and vtech branded phones and accessories outside north america vtech mainly supplies products to fixedline telephone operators brand names and distributors on an original design manufacturing odm basis contract manufacturing services cms vtech started manufacturing products for other brand names on an original equipment manufacturing oem basis in the 1980s and cms became one of the companys core businesses in the early 2000s vtech has been identified as one of the worlds top 50 electronics manufacturing services providers criticism a june 2012 report from the institute for global labour and human rights wikimedia commons has media related to vtech vtech official website vtech phones website us vtech toys website us vtevtech productselectronic learning vtech socrates vsmile vflash vtech precomputer 2000 vtech precomputer 1000 vtech creativision iq unlimited vtech precomputer unlimited home computers laser 128 laser compact xt laser compumate laser pc3 laser pc4 vtech laser 100 vtech laser 200 toys go go smart wheels switch go dinos vtehacking in the 2010s 2000s timeline 2020s major incidents2010 australian cyberattacks operation aurora operation payback 2011 diginotar dnschanger hbgary federal operation antisec operation tunisia playstation rsa securid compromise 2012 linkedin hack stratfor email leak 2013 south korea cyberattack snapchat hack 2013 yahoo data breach 2014 anthem medical data breach operation tovar icloud leaks of celebrity photos sony pictures hack russian hacker password theft 2014 yahoo data breach 2015 office of personnel management data breach hacking team ashley madison data breach vtech data breach swift banking hack 2016 bangladesh bank robbery hollywood presbyterian medical center ransomware incident commission on elections data breach democratic national committee cyber attacks dccc cyber attacks dyn cyberattack russian interference in the 2016 us elections 2017 wannacry ransomware attack westminster cyberattack petya cyberattack 2017 cyberattacks on ukraine equifax data breach deloitte breach disqus breach 2018 trustico exactis atlanta cyberattack groups anonymous associated events bureau 121 cozy bear cyberberkut derp equation group fancy bear gnaa goatse security guccifer 20 hacking team iranian cyber army lizard squad lulzraft lulzsec new world hackers nullcrew nso group paypal 14 pla unit 61398 platinum pranknet redhack rocket kitten the shadow brokers syrian electronic army teamp0ison tailored access operations ugnazi yemen cyber army individuals george hotz guccifer hector monsegur jeremy hammond junaid hussain kristoffer von hassel mustafa albassam mlt ryan ackroyd topiary the jester weev major vulnerabilities publicly disclosed evercookie 2010 iseeyou 2013 heartbleed 2014 shellshock 2014 poodle 2014 rootpipe 2014 row hammer 2014 jasbug 2015 stagefright 2015 drown 2016 badlock 2016 dirty cow 2016 cloudbleed 2017 broadcom wifi 2017 eternalblue 2017 doublepulsar 2017 silent bob is silent 2017 krack 2017 roca vulnerability 2017 blueborne 2017 meltdown 2018 spectre 2018 efail 2018 speculative store bypass 2018 lazy fp state restore 2018 tlbleed 2018 sigspoof 2018 foreshadow 2018 malware bad rabbit careto the mask cryptolocker dexter duqu duqu 20 finfisher flame gameover zeus mahdi metulji botnet mirai nsa ant catalog pegasus petya r2d2 shamoon stars virus stuxnet vault 7 wannacry xagent 