Nissan Data Leak: When Your Car Knows More About You Than Your Best Friend

Hot Take:

Looks like Nissan’s data security is about as reliable as a car with three wheels. If this keeps up, their customer base might start resembling a ghost town. At least they’re staying consistent with their annual data breach tradition! Maybe next year they’ll finally get a break from the hackers—or at least a break from apologizing.

Key Points:

• Nissan experienced a data breach affecting 21,000 customers after unauthorized access to a Red Hat-managed server.
• Leaked information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial email addresses, but not credit card details.
• The breach was detected in September, with customers warned to be vigilant for suspicious activity.
• This is Nissan’s third major data breach in recent years, following incidents affecting North American employees and Oceania customers.
• Criminal groups Crimson Collective and ShinyHunters-linked “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters” are allegedly involved.

Data Breach Déjà Vu

Nissan is once again making headlines for the wrong reasons. In a December breach disclosure, the Japanese automaker revealed that the personal data of 21,000 customers was leaked after a sneaky digital intrusion into a Red Hat-managed server. This comes as the latest installment in Nissan’s yearly tradition of playing peekaboo with hackers. With no credit card information involved this time, customers can at least breathe a small sigh of relief. But with names, addresses, and phone numbers out in the wild, the sighs might be more worried than relieved.

Red Hat’s Rogue Raccoons

In a plot twist worthy of a Hollywood heist movie, Red Hat—the open source software company—had its GitLab instance accessed and copied by unauthorized actors. The company detected this cyber shenanigan on September 26 and swiftly alerted Nissan on October 3. While the automaker tries to put a lid on this latest data spill, customers are advised to stay on high alert for any fishy calls or emails. After all, those pesky cybercriminals would love nothing more than to reel them into a phishing scam.

Crimson Chaos

The cyber mischief is allegedly the handiwork of the Crimson Collective, a group with a flair for the dramatic who claimed to have pilfered 570 GB of compressed data, including sensitive customer documents. Not ones to shy away from a collaboration, they reportedly teamed up with the “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters” gang to extort Red Hat. While neither Nissan nor Red Hat have publicly pointed fingers at specific culprits, the internet rumor mill is in full swing.

Nissan’s Trifecta of Trouble

This isn’t Nissan’s first rodeo with data breaches. In fact, it’s their third in as many years. The automaker seems to be collecting breaches like Pokémon cards at this point. In May 2024, they admitted that personal information from over 50,000 North American employees was stolen in a targeted cyber attack. Prior to that, their Oceania division took a hit from the Akira ransomware gang, affecting over 100,000 customers. If there’s one thing Nissan excels at, it’s making apologies.

Security Tune-Up Needed

As Nissan grapples with its latest cyber headache, the company has vowed to beef up its monitoring and security practices. They’re also making sure to sprinkle in some heartfelt apologies to their customers for the inconvenience. Whether these measures will be enough to stop next year’s inevitable breach remains to be seen. In the meantime, if you’re a Nissan customer, you might want to consider investing in some extra cybersecurity protection—because clearly, it’s not coming from the automaker anytime soon.