Security in smart toys: A systematic review of literature

Abstract

Smart toys are traditional toys embedded with technological intelligence that enhances the toys functionalities to match the need of children in an ever-advancing technological savvy generation. Due to some weaknesses present in their embedded features, the sale and the use of this type of product have been driving some great concernments related to cyber-security. Therefore, this systematic review mapped the current research areas in smart toy security, collect data and show the available works on the subject in question. For conducting this survey, we used electronic resources such as ACM Digital Library, Science Direct (Elsevier) and Scopus in the period between 2014 to 2018. This research protocol was developed by the research question, data sources and search strategies, data extraction and synthesis. After completing all these processes, we selected and analyzed a range of 26 studies from an initial set of 731. We considered the suggestions presented in the analyzed studies about keeping children’s data secured while using smart toys and we came to the conclusion that there is a significant growth in the studies about it, although there is not any study implementing a security model in these toys or a guideline of how to use it safely.