Toyota Left Data Breach Exposed for Ten Years, Admits Affecting 2 Million Customers
Toyota admitted that data linked to cloud-based connected services was left exposed for over ten years.
- Toyota Motor Corporation has revealed a data breach associated with its cloud services, exposing the information of 2.15 million vehicle owners between 2013 and 2023.
- The leak resulted from the misconfiguration of a database, allowing access to anyone, even without a password.
Over 2 million Toyota vehicle owners in Japan are potentially at risk from a data breach at the company that was left exposed for ten years. The Japanese manufacturer admitted that the leak has primarily impacted customers who opted to sign up for its cloud service platform starting in 2012, blaming human error for the issue.
The problem started in November 2013 and was rectified only in April 2023. According to Toyota, an error was made in setting the cloud-based system to public instead of private. The leak has impacted not only Toyota vehicles but also its luxury division, Lexus. The breach has come to light even as the company is making a major push toward upgrading vehicle connectivity with cloud-based data management.
The company has claimed to have blocked outside access to the data, followed by an investigation into all cloud environments of Toyota Connected Corp.
This is not the first data security incident for the company this year.
- In March 2023, a hacker managed to exploit a vulnerability in Toyota’s C360 CRM software, exposing the information of Mexican Toyota consumers.
- In October 2022, the company fell victim to a data breach after the exposure of a T-Connect database access key on the GitHub repository affecting over 200,000 global customers.
- In January 2023, Toyota’s Indian unit revealed a data breach in operations collaborating with Kirloskar Motors.
- A Toyota researcher also found a vulnerability in the company’s Global Supplier Preparation Information Management System (GSPIMS) in February 2023, though the issue was fixed promptly.
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Toyota Takes Measures To Mitigate Damage
The breach has exposed details such as identification numbers of vehicles and real-time vehicle location. However, the company has stated that there has been no malicious use of the data yet. The auto manufacturer has also stated that it would now create a new system to audit cloud platform settings, with continuous monitoring, in addition to data handling training for employees.
Tom Kellermann, SVP of Cyber Strategy at Contrast Security, commented on the incident:
“This Toyota data breach is unsurprising because more organizations are moving to the cloud, and more cloud and serverless malware variants are being born. There are groups like the one behind the first cloud-native malware, Denonia, that will continue to create more variants. I will stress that organizations need to stop assuming that public cloud providers can defend against an evolving threat landscape and that their developers will still be on the hook for securing their systems. However, that means we will also see more defenses created this year.
Cybercrime cartels and rogue nation intelligence services appreciate that the future is island hopping, which lies in colonizing the cloud. This also means that defense capabilities in cloud networks need to improve. One thing that can dramatically help with the development of new defenses is improved security visibility. Due to the total amount of information and resources within cloud and serverless environments, obtaining intelligence and achieving observability is hard.
Toyota, and other enterprises, need to do more than simply react to new vulnerabilities. Primary defenses aren’t going to stop a new zero-day, so organizations need to establish an infrastructure that will allow them to roll out custom defenses quickly. This will allow enterprises to quickly switch from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1 in the face of a new threat.
More zero-day vulnerability disclosures and waves of attack are on the way. Bad actors will continue attacks on cloud-based networks, apps and APIs, open-source libraries, and software development infrastructure. Attackers will leverage these vulnerabilities not only to steal data but also to install malware, run ransomware, and mine cryptocurrency.”
What more do you think companies can do to protect consumer data? Let us know on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We would love to hear from you!
Image source: Shutterstock
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