Employee personal data and production secrets were illegally released by two Tesla employees.
Tesla said it leaked information about more than 75,000 employees at the electric carmaker. The company notified the US State Attorney of Maine of the data breach on August 18. The internal investigation revealed that two former employees leaked the personal information to a German business newspaper, Handelsblatt, the report reads.
” Two former Tesla employees misappropriated the information in violation of Tesla’s information security and data protection policies and released it to a news organization wrote Steven Elentukh, group data protection officer.
The Handelsblatt newspaper assured Tesla that he would not publish this information and that he was ” legally prohibited from using them inappropriately “says the note published by the manufacturer.
Handelsblatt, on the other hand, reported last May that Tesla had suffered a “massive” data breach, the files contained customer complaints about their cars, according to the German media.
These “Tesla Files” contain 100 gigabytes of confidential data. There are personal employee information (names, addresses, phone numbers, employer records), production secrets as well as complaints about self-driving features. According to Handelsblatt, Elon Musk’s social security number was also in the leak.
Internal recurring data breaches
Tesla has sued the employees allegedly responsible for the data breach, but the company won court orders prohibiting former employees from using, accessing or disseminating the data, or face criminal penalties. .
This incident is not the first to challenge information security at Tesla. Last April, Reuters revealed that Tesla employees had shared sensitive images recorded by customers’ cars. Between 2019 and 2022, these employees shared images and videos recorded on car cameras. Employees used it to make memes.
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