The Volkswagen leak exposed the precise location data of thousands of cars in Europe for months

Cariad, the Volkswagen Group’s troubled automotive software division, left terabytes of customer data on 800,000 electric Audi, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen cars exposed online over the course of months. Mirror (in German), citing security researchers who learned about the data leak from an unnamed whistleblower.

Researchers, who they made their speeches The data released this week at the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg, Germany, said more than half of the listed vehicles, about 460,000 vehicles, contained precise location coordinates. They said some of the location data was accurate to within a few centimeters, with data showing most of the cars found in Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom (in descending order), among others.

Cariad corrected the bug that led to the disclosure and said there was no evidence to suggest that anyone other than security researchers had access to the exposed data. In Caria fought in recent years it has been plagued by delays in key software releases and a restructuring that has eliminated hundreds of jobs.