Toyota and Lexus Dealerships Hacked, Millions Left Vulnerable

Toyota and Lexus Dealerships Hacked, Millions Left Vulnerable

Toyota's servers in Japan have been hacked, leaving the data of millions left vulnerable.

Toyota has confirmed that as many as 3.1 million items of Toyota and Lexus customer data may have been breached following an attack on dealerships in Japan.

The company says that "information that may have been leaked this time does not include information on credit cards," but customers are already on edge following the cyber-attack that hit Toyota Australia in February. 

Notification about the breach was published in the company newsroom last week. The statement said that there was "unauthorized access on the network" of a number of dealerships in the Tokyo area of Japan on March 21. Up to 3.1 million pieces of customer data, stored on a server connected to that network, may have been compromised as a result. 

While Toyota insists that credit card data was not leaked, they did mention that names, birth dates and employer information might have been accessed.

"Toyota has leaked names, birth dates and employment information, which can easily become a basis for identity theft," Dan Tuchler, CMO at SecurityFirst said. "But as cars continue to incorporate in-car wifi, voice-based assistants, and automated driver assist, there will be a much larger digital footprint stored on a car maker's servers. Who knows what kind of data will be stored, or what hackers can do with it."

Cyber security analysts are not sure if the breach in Australia and Japan are linked, but Toyota has already said they will begin an investigation into the matter. 

"There's more to learn after this initial disclosure," Tim Erlin, VP, product management and strategy at Tripwire said. "Toyota will continue their investigation, no doubt, but whether further information is actually shared with consumers and the public remains to be seen."


About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

Featured

  • Cloud Adoption Gives Way to Hybrid Deployments

    Cloud adoption is growing at an astonishing rate, with Gartner forecasting that worldwide public cloud end-user spending will approach $600 billion by the end of this year—an increase of more than 21% over 2022. McKinsey believes that number could eclipse $1 trillion by the end of the decade, further underscoring the industry’s exponential growth. Read Now

  • AI on the Edge

    Discussions about the merits (or misgivings) around AI (artificial intelligence) are everywhere. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find an article or product literature without mention of it in our industry. If you’re not using AI by now in some capacity, congratulations may be in order since most people are using it in some form daily even without realizing it. Read Now

  • Securing the Future

    In an increasingly turbulent world, chief security officers (CSOs) are facing a multitude of challenges that threaten the stability of businesses worldwide. Read Now

    • Guard Services
  • Security Entrances Move to Center Stage

    Most organizations want to show a friendly face to the public. In today’s world, however, the need to keep people safe and secure has become a prime directive when designing and building facilities of all kinds. Fortunately, there is no need to construct a fortress-like entry that provides that high level of security. Today’s secured entry solutions make it possible to create a welcoming, attractive look and feel at the entry without compromising security. It is for this reason that security entrances have moved to the mainstream. Read Now

Featured Cybersecurity

Webinars

New Products

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.” 3

  • FEP GameChanger

    FEP GameChanger

    Paige Datacom Solutions Introduces Important and Innovative Cabling Products GameChanger Cable, a proven and patented solution that significantly exceeds the reach of traditional category cable will now have a FEP/FEP construction. 3

  • QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    The latest Qualcomm® Vision Intelligence Platform offers next-generation smart camera IoT solutions to improve safety and security across enterprises, cities and spaces. The Vision Intelligence Platform was expanded in March 2022 with the introduction of the QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC), which delivers superior artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing at the edge. 3