Company cybersecurity specialists Kasada discovered 15,000 car user accounts for sale online that can be used for various scams.
Image source: Jay George / pixabay.com
Kasada did not specify which automakers were involved, but reported that 10,000 accounts from the discovered array belong to a major European brand and are being sold on Telegram at a price of $2 per account. It is noteworthy that vehicle identification numbers (VIN) are also provided with the accounts – cybersecurity experts have recorded the sale of such data for the first time: until now, cybercriminals have had enough of citizens’ personal data.
Car accounts and related data, including VIN numbers, stolen by hackers can be used for various frauds. For example, this can be a car theft using a mobile application, registering a stolen vehicle, car loan fraud, as well as the theft of the car owner’s personal information – his name, phone number and home address are linked to the account.
The situation becomes particularly unpleasant in light of a recent discovery by security experts from the Mozilla project: modern cars collect huge amounts of information about their owners and thus become a “data protection nightmare”. To prevent theft of car accounts, Kasada suggests drivers take care to protect them: do not use the same password on different platforms and enable two-factor authentication if possible.
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