Vtech restores some online services after hack

Children's toy firm Vtech has reopened "key functions" of its Learning Lodge gateway for the first time since it was hacked in November 2015.

The online service is a portal for customers to download games, e-books and other content on to Vtech devices.

They can now register, manage their accounts and use the app store, but some products, including the Power Xtra Laptop and InnoTV, remain offline.

Almost 6.4 million children's details were exposed by the hacker.

Other products which remain offline include the Secret Safe Diary Selfie, Snuggle and Sleep Musical Sheep and MobiGo Touch Learning System.

"After the cyber-attack, we have focused on further strengthening security around user registration information and other services within Learning Lodge," said Vtech chairman and group chief executive Allan Wong in a statement.

"With the key services now resumed, we strongly suggest that our existing customers log into Learning Lodge as soon as they can and change their passwords.

"We apologise that there are still some Learning Lodge services that remain unavailable at this time. We continue to work very hard towards reopening them as soon as possible."

Vtech confirmed at the time that the data accessed by the hacker included children's names, dates of birth and gender as well as the "name, email address, encrypted password, secret question and answer for password retrieval, IP address, mailing address and download history" of the account holder.

The hacker claimed to have acted to highlight the firm's vulnerability.

Some parents expressed anger that the service had not been restored in time for Christmas.