- Toyota reported a data breach of 2.1 million customers due to human error.
- The database was exposed from 2013 until last month, affecting customers of the Lexus brand and the T-Connect service.
- This is a growing concern in the auto industry, with several high-profile cases in recent years, such as the Equifax data breach in 2017 and the attack on Kia Motors in 2021.
Toyota Motor announced this Friday, May 12, that the information of 2.1 million of its customers, which is equivalent to the entire user base that has subscribed to its cloud service platforms since 2013, were exposed all this time. due to human error.
The leak, which even affected customers of the luxury brand Lexus, becomes public as the world’s largest automaker by number of units sold seeks to boost the connectivity of its vehicles and interconnection in the cloud, key developments for the time to fully enter the autonomous driving business, public Reuters.
According to Toyota itself, the leak began in 2013 and lasted until last month due to “human error.”
What happened? They set the database to public instead of private.
While it is not known if anyone outside of Toyota accessed the database, the danger is that in addition to customer information, the location of the vehicles and the identification numbers of the devices were exposed.
Toyota says now introduced more controls to audit the configuration of cloud databases and that it will establish a system to monitor everything permanently.
Many of those affected are customers who subscribed to the service T Connectwhich provides services such as artificial intelligence voice-enabled driving assistance, automatic connection to communication centers for vehicle management, and emergency assistance in cases such as accidents.
It also affected system users G Linka similar service, but for owners of Lexus luxury cars, a brand owned by Toyota.
Filtered data: other cases such as Toyota
Leaks, or worse, data breaches have become a growing concern in the auto manufacturing industry, with several high-profile cases occurring in recent years.
Auto manufacturers rely on vast amounts of data, ranging from personal customer information to intellectual property and sensitive trade secrets.
When this information falls into the wrong hands, it can have disastrous consequences for both the company and its customers.
One example is the 2017 data breach of Equifax, a consumer credit reporting agency. The breach compromised the personal information of millions of customers, including their names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. Equifax later revealed that the breach had also compromised the driver’s license numbers of about 10 million Americans.
In another example, in 2021, hackers attacked Kia Motors America, resulting in a data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 3 million customers.
The incident at Toyota is one more challenge to be faced by Koji Sato, who took over as Toyota CEO in April after the departure of the historic Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company’s founder.
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