Data Breach Affects 3 Million Volkswagen owners. The Volkswagen Group of America (VWGoA), a subsidiary of the German Volkswagen Group, recently disclosed a large-scale data breach that exposed the personal data of more than three million VW customers.
The Data breach affects 3 Million VW Owners came about because between August of 2019 and May of 2021, VWGoA’s vendors left unsecured data exposed on the internet.
The vendor notifies the company that a person without authority or persons had accessed the unsecured data obtaining customer information for people who bought an Audi or Volkswagen, in addition to exposing some details on the dealerships where they purchased the vehicles. A forensic analysis revealed the exposure of 3.3 million customers and 97 percent of those records related to Audi vehicles or interested buyers.
The information in the vulnerable database varies widely from one customer to the next but generally includes full names, email addresses, and phone numbers, and more than 95 percent of the compromised records also included driver’s license numbers.
A small number of exposed customer records, numbering approximately 90,000, also contained social security numbers. VWGoA offers one year of free credit protection and monitoring and a $1 million insurance policy that protects against identity theft for those customers.
VWGoA has also begun the process of notifying all impacted customers. So if you have a BMW or Audi during the time frame mentioned above, or if you have an interest in doing so, Volkwagen may be contacting you.
Unfortunately, the database’s exposure was for an extended period, and there’s no telling how many bad actors may have gained access to it.
Right now, security professionals are monitoring the Dark Web in case the data begins appearing there. So far, it has not, but that could happen at any time.
