Car manufacturer Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, may have had his social security number leaked in a data breach that saw 100GB of confidential information accessed.
The Dutch data protection watchdog, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (DPA), has said that Tesla may have failed to protect confidential data from employees, customers and business partners.
According to news publication Reuters, Tesla has been accused of failing to protect employee, customer and business partner data after 100GB of confidential information was leaked by an employee. The DPA has said that it is “looking into” the data breach.
According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, the publication which broke the Tesla data leak story, the files leaked include the names of more than 100,000 current and former Telsa employees, including the social security number of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Other sensitive data included in the leak includes the phone numbers, private email addresses and salaries of employees, bank details of customers and confidential details from Tesla production. This would mean the breach would violate European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) laws.
According to Handelsblatt, a Tesla lawyer said a “disgruntled former employee” had abused their position as a service technician to gain access to the data and legal action would be taken against said individual.