Hyundai has disclosed a data breach affecting Italian and French car owners and those who have booked a test drive, warning that hackers have gained access to personal data.

Hyundai is a multinational automaker selling more than half a million vehicles a year in Europe, with a market share of around 3% in France and Italy.

According several reports on Twitter and a sample opinion shared by “HaveIBeenPwned” creator Troy Hunt, the incident exposed the following types of data:

• Email addresses
• Physical addresses
• Phone numbers
• Vehicle chassis numbers

The letter also clarifies that the hacker who accessed Hyundai’s database did not steal any financial data or identification numbers.

Hyundai says it hired IT experts in response to the incident, who took affected systems offline until additional security measures were implemented.

In the same communication, the South Korean car brand warns its customers to be careful with unsolicited emails and text messages claiming to be from them, as they could be phishing and social engineering attempts.

“Although there is no evidence that the data concerned was used for fraudulent purposes, out of extreme caution, we urge you to pay particular attention and verify any attempt to contact us by e-mail, post and/or or SMS that may appear originate from Hyundai Italia or other entities of the Hyundai group. says Hyundai Italy.

The same letter was sent to owners of Hyundai cars In Francethe two entities informing the data protection authorities of the two countries.

It is not known how many Hyundai customers this incident affected, how long the network intrusion lasted and which other countries could be affected.

BleepingComputer has contacted Hyundai to inquire about the security incident, and we will update this post as soon as we have a response.

Hyundai has recently suffered from a series of cybersecurity issues.

In February 2023, the company rolled out emergency software updates to several car models affected by a hack simple usb cable which allowed thieves to steal them.

In December 2022, bugs in the Hyundai app allowed remote attackers to unlock and start various impacted models or expose the car owner’s information.