Automotive industry Media report: 800,000 cars affected by data leak at VW
According to a media report, there has been a data leak at the VW software subsidiary Cariad. Movement data from 800,000 e-cars and information on owners is said to have ended up unprotected on the internet, as reported by Der Spiegel. Around 22,000 Swiss cars were also affected.
27.12.2024, 18:22
SDA
Due to a software error, data from VW, Seat, Audi and Skoda vehicles had been accessible in an Amazon cloud storage system for months, the paper writes. According to the report, precise location data on 460,000 vehicles could have been viewed, which would have allowed conclusions to be drawn about the lives of the people behind the wheel.
The VW Group announced that the error has since been rectified. Sensitive information such as passwords or payment data had not been affected. Apart from the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), which drew Cariad's attention to the error on November 26, nobody had accessed the data, according to a statement.
Only data from selected vehicles that were registered for online services and had online connectivity were affected. According to the company, this involved data on charging behaviour and charging habits in order to optimize battery and charging software. "The data was accessed in a very complex, multi-stage process."
VW: No conclusions about individual persons
The CCC was able to access pseudonymized vehicle data that did not allow any conclusions to be drawn about individual persons. "Only by circumventing several security mechanisms, which required a high level of specialist knowledge and a considerable amount of time, and by combining various data sets, was it possible for the CCC to draw conclusions about individual customer data from specific users," it continues.
At no time did the CCC have access to vehicles. "The final analysis of the incident has not yet been completed and will require further work due to its complexity." Once this analysis has been completed, further steps will be decided if necessary.
