VTech Hacker Caught By British Police

In an indication of just how digitally dependent the world has become, many became aware of the fact that children’s gadget maker VTech had been collecting and storing all data their young users input into their devices when news broke of the company’s data breach in November. Now, many are finding out who was behind it.

The BBC reported that a 21-year-old man whose identity has not yet been released was taken into custody in a suburb west of London in connection to the VTech hack that compromised the personal information of more than 6 million users, many of them children. It’s still unclear if the suspect is the same one who contacted Motherboard in late November and claimed that he was trying to raise awareness over VTech’s lax security protocols. Officials are taking the investigation slowly until new information reveals itself.

“We are still at the early stages of the investigation and there is still much work to be done,” Craig Jones, head of the cybercrime unit for London’s South East Regional Organized Crime Unit, told the BBC.

Since there’s still no indication that credit card information was targeted during the breach, the hacker-turned-suspect allegedly accessed biographical information, encrypted passwords and even pictures of children and parents taken through normal use of the VTech devices. Engadget reported that the suspect is being held under “suspicion of unauthorized access to computer[s] to facilitate the commission of an offense,” but that doesn’t jive with the mysterious man’s stated purpose to Motherboard.

“We will continue to work closely with our partners to identify those who commit offenses and hold them to account,” Jones said in a statement.

Whatever happens, until more details come out, children and their parents will be left right where they were the day after the hack: in the dark.