Nissan Data Breach: Thousands Affected by Red Hat Hack
▼ Summary
– Nissan has disclosed a data breach affecting 21,000 customers, stemming from a compromise at its contractor, Red Hat, in September.
– The leaked customer information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial email addresses, but not financial card details.
– The breach is linked to a larger attack on Red Hat by the “Crimson Collective,” which stole internal data used to access customer infrastructure.
– This is not Nissan’s first data security incident, following a 2023 ransomware attack that compromised over 53,000 employee records in North America.
– Nissan has notified regulators and is contacting affected customers, stating there is no current evidence of the data being misused or risk of further leaks from this event.
A significant data breach at a third-party service provider has impacted thousands of Nissan customers in Japan. The incident, which originated from a security compromise at software firm Red Hat, has affected approximately 21,000 individuals. Nissan confirmed that the breach involved customer information managed by Nissan Fukuoka Sales Co., though financial data like card details were not exposed. The company is now notifying regulators and the affected customers directly.
The automaker stated it received an official report from Red Hat on October 3rd. Red Hat had been contracted to develop a customer management system for Nissan dealerships. According to Nissan, an investigation determined that an unauthorized party illegally accessed a data server, leading to the leak. The compromised information includes customer names, home addresses, telephone numbers, partial email addresses, and other details related to sales activities.
Nissan emphasized that there is currently no evidence the stolen data has been misused for fraudulent purposes. However, the company is advising impacted individuals to remain vigilant against suspicious phone calls, emails, or postal mail. In an effort to provide reassurance, Nissan added that the specific Red Hat servers involved do not hold any additional customer information, minimizing the risk of further leaks from this particular source.
This breach is linked to a broader cyberattack targeting Red Hat. An extortion group calling itself “Crimson Collective” claimed responsibility for infiltrating Red Hat’s private GitLab repositories. The attackers reportedly stole nearly 570 gigabytes of data spanning thousands of internal projects. This massive haul included around 800 sensitive Customer Engagement Reports (CERs), which detail client network configurations and platform information.
By targeting Red Hat’s consulting division, the threat actors discovered authentication tokens, complete database URIs, and other critical secrets within the company’s code and reports. They then leveraged this information to gain access to customer infrastructure. A list of allegedly compromised CERs posted by the group included major organizations like Bank of America, T-Mobile, AT&T, Fidelity, and Walmart, highlighting the widespread potential impact of the Red Hat intrusion.
For Nissan, this is not an isolated event. The company faced a serious ransomware attack in late 2023 that compromised the personal information of more than 53,000 employees in North America. Earlier that same year, Nissan North America also had to notify roughly 18,000 customers about a separate data exposure incident involving a different third-party supplier. These repeated incidents underscore the persistent cybersecurity challenges facing global corporations and their extended networks of vendors and partners.
(Source: InfoSecurity Magazine)