Ford Investigating Potential Data Breach Amid Claims Of Theft

November 19, 2024 11:46 am

With hackers getting savvier by the day and companies leaning more and more on data for a variety of reasons, it’s seemingly inevitable that we’ll continue to see breaches for the foreseeable future. Data breaches have become increasingly common these days, which isn’t a huge surprise given how much money is involved in the commerce of information, and Ford isn’t immune to this disturbing trend, either. In fact, the automaker is now investigating a potential data breach after a group of hackers claim that they stole the data records of 44,000 Ford customers.

According to Security Week, a pair of well-known hackers – IntelBroker and EnergyWeaponUser – recently posted at the BreachForums cybercrime forum, claiming that they obtained a variety of information pertaining to Ford customers, including their names, addresses, and the product acquisitions they’ve made. The hackers posted a sample of that data online, which reportedly appears to be related to Ford dealers and not end users themselves, as it contains the addresses of some dealerships from around the globe.

Regardless, this information also reportedly appears to have come from an internal database and isn’t full of too much sensitive information, as dealer addresses are obviously readily available online – though it’s also unclear if the hackers possess more sensitive data in addition to what they posted. In any event, Ford is currently looking into the claims. “Ford is aware and is actively investigating the allegations that there has been a breach of Ford data. Our investigation is active and ongoing,” a company spokesperson stated.

Back in 2019, Ford also dealt with a possible data breach that impacted over 100 million Capital One customers, as well as a second attack stemming from a third party company that manages and safeguards data called Attunity Ltd. Back in January 2023, some Ford security flaws were discovered by a team of cybersecurity researchers, who noted that they could be exploited by hackers to gain access to vehicles and perform activities such as tracking them or unlocking doors remotely, though the automaker was able to patch those in short order.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.