Ford says it is investigating claims that data on thousands of employees was leaked online
- A well-known hacker posts a new thread on an underground forum offering free Ford data
- Ford responded by saying it is investigating the claims
- There is no confirmation yet of the authenticity of the data
Ford says it is investigating a potential data breach after internal company information ended up on the dark web.
A known leaker going by the alias EnergyWeaponUser recently posted a new thread on BreachForums offering Ford’s data for free. “Today I uploaded Ford Motor Company’s internal database for you to download, thanks for reading and enjoy!” the message reads. EnergyWeaponUser added that the company was hacked along with IntelBroker, another notorious leakster.
“In November 2024, Ford Motor Company, an American multinational automotive company, suffered a data breach,” the message further adds. “It reveals 44,000 records of customer names, physical locations and products purchased.”
“Actively investigating”
The crooks also shared a small sample of the stolen data, which appears to include customer names, postal addresses, country codes, customer type codes, city information, sales types, account codes, last update timestamps, and other data.
After the thread came up, The registry contacted the company, which confirmed it was investigating the data theft allegations.
“Ford is aware and is actively investigating allegations that there has been a breach of Ford data,” spokesman Richard Binhammer told the publication. “Our investigation is active and ongoing.”
EnergyWeaponUser and IntelBroker are quite active in the underground hacking community and often post archives of hacked companies. As such, they have seen Cisco information and AMD’s sensitive data leaked in the past. IntelBroker was also seen leaking Europol, Nokia and others.
Whether Ford’s data is authentic remains to be seen. Losing sensitive customer data can cause all kinds of headaches for the company, from fines to class action lawsuits. Typically, however, the largest expense is paying for identity theft and credit monitoring services, which most companies provide to affected individuals for up to two years.
Via The registry