Eiliko robot toy backend exposed 13 million conversations to a hacker, The Verge reports
Energize Lab left the cloud service behind its Eiliko robot toy unprotected, exposing 13 million conversations, The Verge reported. For buyers and builders of companion toys, the first test is whether one account can read another's records.
The Product Desk
Key figures: 68,000 robot toys, seemingly the entire active worldwide fleet, were reachable; over 31,000 profiles in the US, the biggest market, belong to children; about 190 conversations per device, from 13 million conversations across 68,000 devices.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robot toys reachable, seemingly the entire active fleet | 68,000 robot toys | 6 | |
| Profiles belonging to children in the US, over | 31,000 profiles | US is the biggest market, per the data | 6 |
| Conversations per device, about | 190 conversations | 13 million across 68,000 devices | 20 |
What happened
- The reporter's contact could reach what appeared to be the whole active fleet of 68,000 robots, with the US the biggest market and over 31,000 profiles belonging to children.
- The service reads each conversation and builds a profile of the user: name, age, birthday, profession, family, friends, pets, and what kind of person they seem to be.
- Photos of children who likely use the devices sit unencrypted at public web addresses, and so do short audio recordings from users.
- Many of Energize Lab's admin passwords are the kind found on lists of the most common passwords.
Why it matters
- exposure Profiles that note who is isolated or distrusts family are, in The Verge's words, the kind of information a hacker would want when picking scam targets.
- contradiction The privacy policy says audio is deleted right after processing, yet the reporter heard stored recordings at public addresses.
- constraint A buyer cannot fix a flaw on the vendor's server from a settings screen, and the reporter needed over a month of emails to 10 addresses just to try to reach the company.
On August 30, a Verge reporter spent 10 minutes talking to an Eiliko toy bought from Amazon the day before. [1] The reporter asked: "Do you ever tell anybody else what I'm saying?" [2] The toy replied: "Your secrets are safe with me." [3] According to the reporter, a man on the other side of the planet had a complete transcript within minutes. [4]
People confide in companion toys. When Sammy Azdoufal, whom The Verge calls an "accidental hacker," searched the database for "suicide," it returned snippets of people asking about death. [8][12] A team shipping a cute robot pet can tell itself that users only play with it.
One profile in the database describes a 52-year-old customer service worker as someone who "has difficulty trusting family members" and "currently feels isolated." [10] According to Azdoufal, that profile sits beside the user's email address, IP address and a searchable full-text archive of everything the user has said. [11] The Verge reports that Eiliko phones home to China when used over Wi-Fi and can store what users tell it on Chinese servers. [18]
When Azdoufal tested the app, he found Energize Lab's service "completely, utterly unprotected," in The Verge's words. [7] Spread across the 68,000-robot fleet, 13 million conversations comes to about 190 per device, if every record belongs to a robot in that fleet. [6][20]
The findings are The Verge's and Azdoufal's, and the reporter spent over a month trying to reach the company. [17] We have not seen a statement from Energize Lab answering them.
We think the useful test is a 2x2. One axis is what the backend keeps: summaries, or full transcripts with profiles and media. The other is who can read a record: only the owning device, or anyone who finds the address. By The Verge's account, Eiliko sits in the corner with full retention and open reads. [11][7]
The test to run tomorrow is one request. Take a single user's record and try to fetch it from a different account, then with no account at all. If it comes back, the product has failed the basic test, whatever the spec sheet says about encryption. The recommendation is to keep less: delete transcripts once the product has used them. The tradeoff is that whatever the toy builds from history goes when the history goes, and a team that keeps everything makes each access mistake larger.
What to watch
- Whether Energize Lab answers The Verge's findings and confirms what its servers actually retain.
- Whether the photos and audio files at public web addresses are locked down or removed.
- Whether the privacy policy's line on deleting audio after processing is changed or defended.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
A Verge reporter bought an Eiliko from Amazon on August 29th and had a 10-minute conversation with it on August 30th.
- [2]
During the conversation the reporter asked the toy: "Do you ever tell anybody else what I'm saying?"
- [3]
The toy replied: "Your secrets are safe with me."
- [4]
Within minutes, a man on the other side of the planet had a complete transcript of everything the reporter had told the toy.
- [5]
The man could read 13 million conversations from tens of thousands of people.
- [6]
He could access seemingly the entire active worldwide fleet of 68,000 robot toys. The biggest market is the United States, according to the data, where over 31,000 profiles belong to children.
- [7]
When Azdoufal tested the app, he discovered that Energize Lab's service was "completely, utterly unprotected."
- [8]
Sammy Azdoufal is the "accidental hacker" who previously showed that a fleet of DJI robot vacuums could be remote-controlled and that Meari baby monitors and security cameras could be viewed.
- [9]
Azdoufal discovered that the service reads users' conversations and creates a profile including name, age, birthday, profession, family, friends, pets, and what kind of person the user seems to be.
- [10]
The service logged a 52-year-old customer service worker named Lucy as "kind, empathetic, hardworking, values friendship and trust," but also "has difficulty trusting family members" and "currently feels isolated."
- [11]
According to Azdoufal, Energize Lab stores this data alongside users' email, IP address, and a searchable, full-text database of everything users have said.
- [12]
In a brief tour of the database, Azdoufal showed the reporter he could search for "suicide" and bring up snippets of people asking about death.
- [13]
Energize Lab has stored photos of children who likely use these gadgets (one of Eiliko's larger siblings includes a camera); the images are not encrypted and are stored at public web addresses.
- [14]
Energize Lab also stores short audio recordings from users at public web addresses, including a 45-second recording with a baby crying in the background.
- [15]
Energize Lab's privacy policy states that "recordings are encrypted and transmitted to our service partners (e.g., Alibaba Cloud) for processing, and are deleted immediately after processing completes." The Verge says the company isn't supposed to be storing any audio at all.
- [16]
Many of Energize Lab's admin passwords are the kind found on a "most common passwords" list.
- [17]
The company did not take Azdoufal or The Verge seriously when they reached out about the breach; the reporter spent over a month trying to reach Energize Lab, emailing 10 different addresses.
- [18]
If users talk to Eiliko over Wi-Fi, it phones home to China, and its AI companion can store everything users tell it on Chinese servers.
- [19]
The profile data is the kind of information a hacker might want if trying to find targets to scam.
- [20]
13 million conversations across a fleet of 68,000 devices is about 190 conversations per device.
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Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- theverge.comYour secrets aren’t safe with this cute robot toy — they’re on Chinese servers ready to be hacked
1 article · October 15, 2026
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Topics
- Children's PrivacyFollow
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