Nissan data breach impacts 50K+ employees

Nissan data breach overview: 

• Who: Nissan North America disclosed it suffered a data breach in November that exposed the personal information of more than 53,000 current and former employees. 
• Why: Nissan attributed the data breach to a targeted cyberattack on its external VPN by a criminal threat actor who it says deliberately shut down certain of its systems before demanding a ransom. 
• Where: The data breach affects certain individuals nationwide. 

Nissan North America experienced a data breach last year that exposed the personal information of more than 53,000 of its current and former employees. 

In a data breach notification submitted to the Office of the Maine Attorney, the automaker says it discovered details about the data breach Feb. 28, 2024, after learning in November that it was the victim of a targeted cyberattack. 

Nissan says it notified all of its current employees in December about the cyberattack, informing them at that time it was possible hackers accessed some of their information during the incident. 

The automaker attributed the data breach to a targeted attack against its external VPN, during which it says a criminal threat actor deliberately shut down certain systems and demanded a ransom.

Nissan says no indication any information exposed in data breach misused 

In a letter to those affected by the data breach, Nissan says it found no indication any of the exposed employee information had been misused or “was the intended target of the unauthorized actor.” 

The automaker also notes the data exposed during the incident did not contain any financial information. 

Nissan, which says it deeply regrets the incident, is providing employees potentially affected by the data breach with free access to fraud and identity theft protection services through Experian “out of an abundance of caution.” 

Earlier this year, a Nissan dealership in Las Vegas doing business as Planet Nissan agreed to a class action settlement to end claims the auto dealer failed to protect customers from a June 2022 data breach. 

The class action lawsuit claimed Planet Nissan did not have reasonable cybersecurity measures in place to protect its customers from a data breach which allegedly compromised the sensitive information of about 1,000 consumers. 

Have you been affected by the Nissan data breach? Let us know in the comments.

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