By Steven Symes 
Automaker Stellantis has announced that recently a data breach led to customers’ personal info being stolen. It seems like these days there are data breaches and hacks far too often, including with car companies.
Your next new car might come with AM radio.
The company says it detected the unauthorized access of the information through a third-party service provider’s platform. That other organization apparently helps provide customer service support in North America, so Europeans and other Stellantis vehicle owners need not worry.
Thankfully, Stellantis detected the breach, putting into motion its incident response protocols. That meant the breach was contained and the risk for more information being stolen mitigated.
The good news is Stellantis says the information that was stolen wasn’t anything financial or “sensitive.” It was simply contact info, so names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
We hate to say it, but your contact information is probably sold by marketing firms all the time. That’s why everyone these days has to be careful about scam calls, phishing emails, and deceptive text messages.
With this sort of thing happening all the time these days, it’s good to beef up your security. Using a credit monitoring service, especially one that guards against identity theft, is a solid move. So is having dual authentication set up for all your important online accounts, in particular anything financial or for online shopping.
Staying vigilant and not handing out any personal information when you’re contacted by someone claiming to represent a company or government entity is also a wise move.
Thankfully, in this case the data breach didn’t involve hackers gaining access to vehicle location data or remote services like locking and unlocking doors. Those kinds of hacks have been happening far too often lately, with worse threats looming over vehicle owners’ heads.
Image via Stellantis