Private Factory Data from Carmakers Found Posted on Internet

Company secrets detailing factory layouts, contracts and production data from six major carmakers have been found on an unsecured server operated by a small Canadian supplier, The New York Times reports.

The trove of unguarded material from more than 100 companies included data from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford, General Motors, Tesla, Toyota and Volkswagen.

The data involved companies that have interacted with Level One Robotics and Controls Inc., an automation engineering company based in Windsor, Ontario.

More than 46,000 documents was discovered by UpGuard Inc., an Australian cybersecurity firm now based in Mountain View, Calif. The company specializes in services designed to prevent data breaches. It isn’t clear whether any of the documents had been accessed by hackers.

UpGuard says it found the exposed data on a Level One backup server that could be accessed without special permission or a password. The documents, which were secured last week, also included scanned driver’s licenses, passports and nondisclosure agreements.