If you’ve never heard of the app called TeenSafe, there’s a good chance that’s because you’re either not a teen or you’re not a parent. For those unfamiliar, TeenSafe is an app designed to monitor the smartphones of teens by their parents, keeping track of how teens use their phones so that parents have a better idea of what their kids are up to.The app also bills itself as being a “secure” monitoring app, although that seems rather ironic now because according to a report from ZDNet, the app has accidentally leaked thousands of its users’ account information, which includes Apple ID email addresses, the names of the device of its users (which in some cases were the names of the teens), its unique identifier, and even passwords which were stored in plaintext format.
The leak was originally discovered by UK-based security researcher Robert Wiggins and verified by ZDNet who informed the service of its leaky servers, following which they were pulled offline. In a statement provided to ZDNet, a TeenSafe spokesperson said, “We have taken action to close one of our servers to the public and begun alerting customers that could potentially be impacted.”
It is unclear if hackers might have accessed any of this information before it was discovered, but if you are a parent who uses TeenSafe or knows someone who does, perhaps it might be a good idea to revisit your security settings just to be safe.