21K Nissan customers' data stolen in Red Hat raid

Thousands of Nissan customers are learning that some of their personal data was leaked after unauthorized access to a Red Hat-managed server, according to the Japanese automaker. About 21,000 customers who purchased a vehicle or had service done at the former Nissan Fukuoka Motor Co. (now Nissan Fukuoka Sales Co.) were affected by a digital intrusion detected in September, the company said in a December breach disclosure. While the crooks reportedly did not steal any credit card information, leaked personal details include customers' addresses, names, phone numbers, partial email addresses, and other customer-related information used for sales activities. "At this time, there has been no confirmation that the leaked information has been used for secondary purposes," the car manufacturer said in a Japanese-language report translated via Google, adding that customers should be on high alert for suspicious calls or mail - all of these stolen details can be valuable to criminals in targeted phishing attacks or other financial fraud. "Nissan takes this incident very seriously and will strengthen its monitoring of its subcontractors and take further steps to strengthen information security," the company noted. "We would like to once again offer our deepest apologies to our customers for any inconvenience caused." The IBM-owned open source software maker previously disclosed that "an unauthorized third party had accessed and copied some data from a Red Hat Consulting-managed, dedica...