Volkswagen Data Leaks Reveal 800,000 Electric Vehicle Locations During Months

Illustration of Volkswagen electric vehicles (photo: Volkswagen)

JAKARTA - Some time ago, the Volkswagen vehicle company experienced a data leak that caused information on the location of about 800,000 of their electric vehicles to be available online for months.

Based on information from German magazine Der Spiegel, this leak occurred due to vulnerabilities in Volkswagen vehicle software and includes other Volkswagen-owned brands such as Audi, Seat, and Skolda.

Der Spiegel discovered that Cariad, a Volkswagen subsidiary behind the automaker's software, allows attackers to find and access driver data stored in Amazon's cloud storage service.

The leaked data includes the location of the vehicle, email, telephone number, driver's address, and information on when the vehicle is turned on or turned off.

A total of 460,000 Volkswagen and Seat vehicles were detected to have very accurate location data, up to 10 cm, while for Audi and Skode the accuracy is about 10 km.

The data was later highlighted by hacker Chaos Computer Club (CCC), who received information from an anonymous hacker. The club contacted Germany's Federal Interior Ministry and state police, giving Volkswagen and Cariad 30 days to deal with the situation before announcing it to the public.

Nonetheless, Cariad claims to have handled the issue and stated there was no sensitive information such as passwords or payment details affected.