Half of smart household gadgets vulnerable to hackers

From devices that order our groceries to smart toys that speak to our children, high-tech home gadgets are no longer the stuff of science fiction. But even as they transform our lives, they put families at risk from criminal hackers taking advantage of security flaws to gain virtual access to homes, a report warns. It comes as manufacturers routinely install technology into new household products that allows them to connect to the'internet of things', an umbrella term for devices that can go online. Scary: Which? said ethical hackers broke into the CloudPets toy and made it play its own voice messages. This lets them work with smartphones and'home hubs' such as Amazon's Echo and its virtual assistant Alexa, as well as the Google Home device.