A young British mother is warning of the unsuspected dangers of children’s toys following a frightening experience with her son’s walkie-talkie.
Her name is Kelly Medina Enos and she is the mother of two children, in addition to being a social media star, especially on TikTok. It was on this platform that she recently shared a disturbing experience with her 613,700 subscribers.
She discovered that a walkie-talkie she had bought for her 4-year-old son, George, had been hacked by a “ adult man “. Very shocked by this adventure, she apologizes for having praised the toy to her followers and, above all, warns them against the dangers of using these connected objects, a favorite target of hackers.
“ Good morning ? You are there ? Hello Mom ! », a frightening awakening
One evening, while her son George was sleeping, Kelly heard a voice that was not only strange, but unfamiliar in her house. At first, she couldn’t identify where she came from. “ We could clearly hear someone talking “, she explains in a TikTok video which has been viewed more than 871,800 times. Thinking it might be someone returning from the pub and chatting outside her house, she checked her CCTV but saw no one.
She then says she remembered that she and George had been playing with walkie-talkies earlier in the day, and one of them had been left on. What she heard next chilled her with fear. Coming out of the toy’s speaker, the voice of a grown man said, ” Good morning ? You are there ? Hello Mom. » She then realized that not only did she not know the man who was speaking to them, but also that anyone could use a walkie-talkie. She didn’t look for it from noon to two p.m. and completely threw her son’s toy away.
An apology and a call for vigilance to hundreds of thousands of subscribers
After this nightmarish adventure, the British TikTok star launched a call for vigilance on his account. “ Please don’t make the same mistake as me “, she told her followers. She also apologized for sharing an affiliate link to the toy in another of her videos and said that normally when she recommends a product, it’s because she thinks it’s safe.
On a lighter note, her story sparked a lot of reactions on TikTok, with some commenters saying they had similar frightening experiences. “ The same thing happened to me with my little one! An adult claimed he was under the bed! I was absolutely terrified, they immediately went in the trash “, shared a subscriber about a similar pair of walkie-talkies. “ This also happens with baby monitors. Parents should be careful », added another follower. We also remember this fake Santa Claus who hacked the surveillance camera of a child’s bedroom. Scary.
The importance of securing connected objects
This domestic anecdote proves once again that children’s toys are not safe. On Temu, for example, more than 9 out of 10 toys are dangerous. A 2023 study by the US PIRG Education Fund warned against toys that spy on children, noting that a growing number of toys use technological functions even if they don’t seem like it.
And because connected objects are more and more numerous in our daily lives and are all doors open to hackers, the
Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) is implementing the Product Security Verified (PSV) standard to strengthen the security of connected objects.
The CNIL also issued its basic recommendations regarding connected toys for children, including deactivating automatic sharing on social networks as well as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth when not in use.
As the European Parliament recalls, “ Every toy sold in the EU will need to have a digital product passport », which, for the moment, exempts non-EU sellers from these standards which are in principle mandatory.
Our recommendations
Walkie-talkies, like baby monitors, are devices operating on the 466 MHz band, otherwise known as PMR446. This frequency is free, and can therefore be used by anyone with a radio transmitter. This is what allowed the hacking of little George’s toy. To avoid unwanted intrusions, make sure that your talkie has several channels and confidentiality codes to encrypt your frequencies and make them tamper-proof.
But they can also be made secure using CTCSS (Contunuous Tone Coded Squelch System), an analog filtering system that adds a sub-audible tone to transmissions.
When you enable CTCSS on a channel, your walkie talkie only broadcasts messages that carry the same CTCSS tone.
In other words, it makes the channel more secure by preventing other users from disrupting your communications.
If your child’s walkie-talkie is not compatible with the CTCSS, then it is necessary to make them aware of the risks of open frequencies, that they can be used by unknown or malicious people and that if they do not know his interlocutor, he must immediately notify an adult. In this case, it is strongly recommended to change frequency.
Whatever the case, the best protection against danger remains parental supervision.
Sources: New York Post, TikTok by Kelly Medina Enos, European Parliament
19