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Comment in response to Toyota data leak story
May 2023 by Jon Fielding, Managing Director EMEA Apricorn
Toyota Japan has revealed that data belonging to more than two million customers was left ’publicly available’ for a decade due to a cloud configuration error. The car manufacturer said that a cloud system was set to public rather than private, meaning that customer data was exposed. Toyota says there is no evidence of malicious activity at this time. The comment in response to the Toyota data leak story as sourced from Jon Fielding, Managing Director, EMEA at Apricorn.
“Organisations need to keep in mind that the biggest threats to enterprise data assets are the same ones we have faced for years and they haven’t changed. Simple data hygeine and best practice could put a stop to most cyber attacks. Many security breaches are still down to something as simple as choosing a weak password, using non-encrypted portable devices/hardware, clicking on a link from an untrusted source, or poor employee education. Ultimately, user error will always pose a huge threat and basic security best practices, education and policy could very easily have prevented this.
Irrespective of the cause, all corporate data should be automatically encrypted as standard, whether it’s in transit or at rest, so if an unauthorised individual does gain access an IT system or leave it pen to others, the information they find will be unintelligible.
The future of automobile tech is only going to exacerbate this issue, with potential for further threat vectors. Our cars can now do more than ever before and manufacturers should be looking to put more emphasis on how they can protect driver data such as dashcam footage, to credit card information stored on phones connected to the vehicle via Bluetooth technology, or driver GPS location. The simple adoption of a 3-2-1 storage strategy and encryption of all data should be a manufacturing industry must do. Automotive manufacturers should be leading the way as innovators that recognize the need to protect this data.
This also applies to attacks that aim to monetise data through ransom demands for example, offline storage is your friend, and an important defence against the rising ransomware threat, as data can easily be segregated from the network to keep a copy safely out of the reach of hackers.”
