Hackers Find Volkswagen Electric Car Data Security Gap, 800,000 Owners Threatened

VW ID. Buzz. (Doc. Volkswagen Group)

JAKARTA - Electric cars, with all their technological sophistication, are also vulnerable to cyber attacks. The relationship, which is one of the characteristics of today's vehicles, both electric and conventional cars, opens the door for hackers to commit various kinds of malicious acts.

Recently, quoted from Road & Track, Tuesday, December 31, there was a report from a German news outlet Spiegel that data on more than 800,000 VW electric model owners was exposed earlier this year, including specific GPS coordinates and owner information.

The shocking report deals with Cariad, a company responsible for the apps made by Volkswagen for its customers. Like other auto-supported apps, the VW service allows end users to control aspects of their vehicles connected via handheld devices; and just like many other apps, it stores a lot of data about users like where they drive, where they park, and how long they are in a certain location. According to the report, Cariad left this information open through Amazon's cloud services. When Spiegel looked for it, they found "some terabytes" of this data.

Accessing the system will not be a significant challenge for intelligence services, VW competitors, criminals, "or even teenagers who get bored," the report claimed.

According to the report, owners of VW, Seat, Audi, and Skode were all affected. While the story includes owners across Europe, it's unclear if it affects owners in North America.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Tostedt, Nadja Weippert, is one of the owners whose data has been revealed.

"I was surprised," he told Speigel. "It's impossible for my data to be stored unencrypted in Amazon's cloud and then even not adequately protected," he said.

Cariad himself said it had closed the security gap as soon as they found out. An IT security firm said the measure was swift, thorough, and responsible; furthermore, it said there was no evidence of data misuse.