VW data leak in North America – over 3.3 million customers affected
MRT, 12 June 2021
New trouble for Volkswagen in North America: Due to a breakdown at a business partner, the data of more than 3.3 million people was unsecured on the Internet for over a year. According to current knowledge, VW is assuming that customers and prospective buyers of the Audi subsidiary will be affected, a company spokesman said on Friday. Previously, the US blog TechCrunch reported on the data leak and published a letter to customers and a corresponding letter from a lawyer.
U.S. social security and bank account numbers
According to VW, the majority of the data is only contact information. This part of the leak includes names, e-mail addresses, telephone and sometimes vehicle numbers of around 3.1 million Audi customers in the USA and 163,000 in Canada as well as 3,300 VW customers in the US. However, more confidential data from around 90,000 Audi customers was also unprotected. 95 percent of these cases are about driver’s license numbers, but a small proportion also concern highly sensitive information such as US social security and bank account numbers.
An international law firm said in letters to attorneys general in the United States on June 10 on behalf of Volkswagen and Audi that an unauthorized third party had obtained limited access to customer data. VW turned on the judicial authorities and hired external data analysis and cybersecurity experts. The leaked information was therefore collected between 2014 and 2019 by a business partner for sales and marketing purposes.
