Data on 800 thousand Volkswagen electric vehicles are now publicly available

In Europe, the data of about 800 thousand motorists were leaked to the public. This is reported by Der Spiegel, according to UNN.

Details

It is noted that as a result of the Volkswagen data leak, confidential information of 800 thousand electric vehicle owners became available, including GPS coordinates and battery level. The leak made it possible to determine the daily routine of the owners, including politicians, entrepreneurs and security forces. The bug was fixed, but the incident highlighted the need to improve cybersecurity in the automotive industry.

In about 466 thousand out of 800 thousand cases, the location data was so accurate that it could be used to map each owner's daily routine,

According to the publication, several terabytes of data belonging to thousands of electric car owners were unprotected in Amazon's cloud storage. The leak affected Volkswagen, Seat, Audi, and Skoda cars. It is noted that the geolocation of about 460 thousand cars was also made public.

The problem was discovered by an anonymous whistleblower who used publicly available software to disclose confidential information.

Most of the victims are drivers from Germany. As it turned out, the leak occurred through Volkswagen's subsidiary, the software development company  Cariad. Cariad's technical team acted quickly to block unauthorized access to customer data.

Volkswagen has issued a statement assuring customers that no confidential information such as passwords or payment details were disclosed in the hack. However, concerns remain about how this data could be used by criminals, fraudsters, blackmailers, or stalkers.

Recall

German car giant Volkswagen is planning a large-scale optimization by 2030, cutting a third of its staff. The company will not close plants, but will reduce production capacity and cut management salaries.