A New Volkswagen Scandal on the Horizon?

Troubles are always said to fly in formation, assured President Jacques Chirac. It’s not Volkswagen that will contradict that.

The specter of Dieselgate, which shook Volkswagen’s credibility in 2015, still hovers over the German group. This scandal revealed manipulations of emissions on millions of vehicles, and today a major cybersecurity flaw is once again tarnishing the reputation of the German automaker. Add to that the fact that the financially struggling manufacturer has just completed a historic restructuring plan, and you have all the ingredients of a major burnout!

Volkswagen’s software division, Cariad, leaked data from nearly 800,000 electric cars. This information, stored on an unsecured Amazon server, included sensitive data such as drivers’ names and the precise location of vehicles. Some of this data was accurate to within 10 centimeters, seriously compromising user privacy.

Disclosed by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a European organization of ethical hackers, the flaw was attributed to a misconfiguration of two applications. Alerted on November 26, Cariad responded quickly, fixing the vulnerability the same day. According to the company, only the CCC team accessed this data, with no evidence of malicious use by other parties.

The repercussions of this leak affect nearly 300,000 vehicles in Germany, but also thousands more in France, the UK, Sweden, and beyond. Among the users impacted are members of Hamburg police and public figures like Nadja Weippert and Markus Grüebel, two German politicians. The CCC also demonstrated that easily accessible tools could locate the affected vehicles.

Volkswagen claims that the collected data is essential for improving digital services and products, and assures that this data is pseudonymized and compliant with regulations. However, this new incident raises questions about corporate responsibility in managing sensitive data, especially in a context of increasing digitalization of automobiles.

In response to this incident, Cariad must not only strengthen its security protocols but also regain user trust shaken by this new crisis. Volkswagen, still scarred by Dieselgate, now faces a challenge of transparency and resilience in the digital age.

READ ALSO: Cheap Electric Volkswagen, a Project with No Future?