San Francisco. Elon Musk-run Tesla has admitted that a data breach affecting more than 75,000 employees of the company was carried out by an insider.
In a data breach notice filed with the attorney general of the US state of Maine, the electric car maker said an internal investigation revealed that two former employees leaked personal information of more than 75,000 individuals to a foreign media outlet.
“The investigation revealed that two former Tesla employees misused information and shared it with media outlets in violation of Tesla’s IT security and data protection policies,” said Steven Alentukh, Tesla’s data privacy officer.
The leaked personal information includes data on some current and former employees, including names, certain contact information (such as address, phone number and/or email address), employment-related records, and Social Security numbers of 75,735 current and former employees .
According to the company, a foreign media outlet (named Handelsblatt) notified Tesla on May 10, 2023, that it had received Tesla’s confidential information.
According to the company, “The outlet has stated that it does not intend to publish personal information, and is, in any case, legally prohibited from using it improperly. Tesla took immediate steps to contain the incident, understand the scope, and protect your information.”
Tesla identified the two former employees and filed suit against them. These lawsuits resulted in the confiscation of electronic devices from former employees that were believed to contain Tesla information.
Tesla said it also received court orders barring former employees from further use, access or dissemination of the data subject to criminal penalties.
Handelsblatt reported in May that Tesla had suffered a “massive” breach that exposed everything from employees’ personal information to customer complaints about their cars.
The publication obtained more than 23,000 internal documents, dubbed the “Tesla Files”, which contained 100 gigabytes of confidential data.
According to the publication, the leak also included Musk’s Social Security number.
(IANS)
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Web Title-Tesla admits data breach affecting 75,000 employees was the work of a home person