Volkswagen Data Leak: Activities Of 800,000 EV Owners Exposed

After laying off 35,000 workers to keep its facilities operating, German automaker Volkswagen is now rushing to get its act together after a significant data breach revealed the personal data of about 800,000 EV owners. According to a local news outlet, the material had been stored in an Amazon cloud storage system for months without any protection.

On November 26, the corporation was alerted to the leak by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a good-faith hacker organisation. The leak contained exact position information for 460,000 Volkswagen, Seat, and Audi vehicles. According to Cariad, the automotive software firm of Volkswagen Group, no malicious actors were able to access the exposed data even though it was available online.

In a statement reviewed by the German news agency DPA, VW stated that the information is no longer available because the issue has subsequently been fixed. The company added that passwords and payment information were unaffected and that the breach only affected location and contact information. Only a small number of cars that were registered for online services were initially in danger, it continued, adding that "the data was accessed in a very complex, multi-stage process."


To put it another way, affected users shouldn't be particularly worried about the dark web obtaining their location data. The carmaker however, has begun looking into the situation and will decide what to do next once the inquiry is complete.

Modern cars are exposed to a wide range of potential threats as they become more and more internet-connected. Just last year, a TikTok challenge went viral, teaching Hyundai users how to hack their cars, which led to over a dozen collisions and eight fatalities.