Hyundai Discloses Data Breach Affecting Italian and French Car Owners
IT Services has announced that Hyundai, a multinational automotive manufacturer selling over half a million vehicles per year in Europe with a market share of approximately 3% in France and Italy, has suffered a data breach affecting Italian and French car owners and those who booked a test drive.
The company warns that hackers have gained access to personal data including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, telephone numbers, and vehicle chassis numbers. However, the hackers did not steal any financial data or identification numbers.
According to multiple reports on Twitter and a sample of the notice shared by HaveIBeenPwned creator Troy Hunt, the data breach has exposed sensitive information of Hyundai customers. The company has engaged IT experts in response to the incident, who have taken the impacted systems offline until additional security measures are implemented.
In the same communication, Hyundai warns its customers to be cautious with unsolicited e-mails and SMS texts claiming to originate from them, as they could be phishing and social engineering attempts.
The same letter was sent to Hyundai car owners in France, with both entities informing data protection authorities in the two countries.
It is still unclear how many Hyundai customers this incident impacts, how long the network intrusion lasted, and what other countries might be affected.
Hyundai has suffered from a range of cybersecurity issues recently. In February 2023, the company rolled out emergency software updates on several car models impacted by a simple USB cable hack that enabled thieves to steal them. In December 2022, bugs in the Hyundai app allowed remote attackers to unlock and start various impacted models or expose car owner information.
We have contacted Hyundai to learn more about the security incident, and we will update this post as soon as we hear back.
