The source code of mobile apps and internal tools developed and used by Nissan North America has leaked online after the company misconfigured one of its Git servers.
The leak originated from a Git server that was left exposed on the internet with its default username and password combo of admin/admin, Tillie Kottmann, a Swiss-based software engineer, told ZDNet in an interview this week.
Kottmann, who learned of the leak from an anonymous source and analyzed the Nissan data on Monday, said the Git repository contained the source code of:
- Nissan NA Mobile apps
- some parts of the Nissan ASIST diagnostics tool
- the Dealer Business Systems / Dealer Portal
- Nissan internal core mobile library
- Nissan/Infiniti NCAR/ICAR services
- client acquisition and retention tools
- sale / market research tools + data
- various marketing tools
- the vehicle logistics portal
- vehicle connected services / Nissan connect things
- and various other backends and internal tools
SMAT/webscrape is a tool by the data science/market research team, which scrapes all current offers on cars by zip code from https://t.co/5h9U6RLYge.
— tillie, doer of crime 💛🤍💜🖤 (@antiproprietary) January 4, 2021
yes thats a Nissan website.
great culture if you have to scrape the website another departement made to get data you need.
(6/n) pic.twitter.com/tIshObv8vl
Nissan is investigating the leak
The Git server, a Bitbucket instance, was taken offline yesterday after the data started circulating on Monday in the form of torrent links shared on Telegram channels and hacking forums.
Reached out for comment, a Nissan spokesperson confirmed the incident.
"Nissan conducted an immediate investigation regarding improper access to proprietary company source code. We take this matter seriously and are confident that no personal data from consumers, dealers or employees was accessible with this security incident. The affected system has been secured, and we are confident that there is no information in the exposed source code that would put consumers or their vehicles at risk," the Nissan rep told ZDNet in an email.
The Swiss researchers received a tip about Nissan's Git server after they found a similarly misconfigured GitLab server in May 2020 that leaked the source code of various Mercedes Benz apps and tools.
Mercedes eventually admitted to the leak, and Kottmann, who was hosting the leaked data, also removed it from their server at the company's request.
Updated on January 7 at 21:00 ET with new statement from Nissan North America.