Although Toyota hasn't disclosed the exact date of the breach, researchers discovered that the files were either produced on December 25, 2022, or they had been stolen. This timestamp would suggest that the data was kept on a backup server that was accessed by the threat actor.

Due to a Medusa ransomware attack that affected the Japanese automaker's European and African divisions in November of last year, customers' sensitive personal and financial data was compromised, as Toyota subsidiary Toyota Financial Services (TFS) informed customers in December. Months earlier, in May, Toyota announced another data breach, this time revealing that a database misconfiguration in the company's cloud environment left 2,150,000 customers' vehicle location data exposed for 10 years, from November 6, 2013, to April 17, 2023. A few weeks later, it was discovered that two more improperly set up cloud services had been leaking private customer data from Toyota for more than seven years.

To stop similar leaks in the future, Toyota claimed to have installed an automatic system to check database settings and cloud configurations across all of its environments after these two instances. In 2019, several Toyota and Lexus sales subsidiaries experienced security breaches due to the theft and disclosure of what the firm first stated could have been as many as 3.1 million customer records.

Impact

• Information Disclosure
• Credential Theft
• Sensitive Data Theft
• Identity Theft

Remediation

• Maintain cyber hygiene by updating your anti-virus software and implementing a patch management lifecycle.
• Emails from unknown senders should always be treated with caution.
• Never trust or open links and attachments received from unknown sources/senders.
• Keep your software up to date. Software updates often include security patches that can help to protect your systems from known vulnerabilities.
• Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication. This will make it more difficult for attackers to gain access to your systems.
• Back up your data regularly. This will help you to recover in case of a cyber incident.
• Deploy robust endpoint security solutions, including antivirus, anti-malware, and intrusion detection systems to detect and prevent threats.
• Immediately disconnect or isolate the compromised systems from the network to prevent the malware from spreading further. This may involve shutting down affected servers or segments of the network.
• Conduct a thorough investigation to determine the extent of the breach, including identifying which systems and data were compromised.
• Develop a long-term cybersecurity strategy to prevent future incidents, including investing in advanced threat detection and response capabilities.