Canadian car-sharing company Communauto is the automotive industry’s latest victim of a cyber attack. President and CEO Benoit Robert shared the news, explaining that the company’s data was encrypted and access to a number of their servers were locked during the attack.
According to Robert, hackers did not access user interfaces containing potentially sensitive information like passwords. Communauto is PCI compliant, which means that all credit card information is stored with a third party service and is inaccessible to hackers. What was accessed included client information such as member numbers, names, mailing addresses and email addresses. Driver’s license information may have been affected by the attack.
“We have good reason to believe that any data that may have been copied from our servers during this intrusion was, as a result of negotiations, destroyed by the hackers,” said Robert in an email to customers.
Since the attack, Communauto has focused on strengthening it’s cyber security, a move that many companies within the auto industry are taking. Manufacturers in particular are looking to fortify systems as regulators look at ways to protect consumers.
“The automotive industry has been experiencing an increase in cyber attacks recently,” said the New Straits Times last month. “And as (a) result of the growing number of attack techniques, new regulatory requirements are being introduced for manufacturers to follow in order to stay protected against these attacks.”
