Wednesday 01 Jan
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that a data leak at Cariad, a software company subsidiary of the German automaker Volkswagen, left the personal data of electric vehicle owners in Europe exposed online for several months.
According to the magazine, data on the movement of 800,000 vehicles and contact information of their owners was accessible via Amazon's cloud storage platform. A recent report revealed that the precise location data of approximately 460,000 vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen, Seat, Audi, and Skoda brands was accessible.
In a statement, the Volkswagen
Group said that the error has since been rectified, and sensitive information
such as passwords or payment data was not affected. The statement indicated
that the data affected by the leak was only related to specific vehicles that
were registered for online services and had activated online connectivity.
The Volkswagen Group further stated that the only entity to access the data was a hacking group known as the "Cyber Chaos Club." The group notified Cariad of the vulnerability on November 26th.
