Kia India recovers its Instagram account from hackers

Kia India on Wednesday recovered and reinstated its Instagram account from cyber attackers. The social media account was hacked on Tuesday by unknown cyber attackers, where the perpetrators posted an irrelevant video. Also, they changed the account information and the profile image as well. However, the South Korean automaker's Indian subsidiary has now recovered the account and deleted the video that was posted by the hackers. It also reinstated the profile image along with the account description.

The hackers on Tuesday posted a video with a caption reading, "Remember us? #ly #tomy Party time 💀". This post raised suspicion of cyber-attack. This was not the first time Kia Motors fell prey to cyber-attacks. Previously as well, the Hyundai Group-owned automaker faced similar issues with its social media accounts. Back in 2021 as well, Kia Motors’ website was hacked and the cyber-attackers demanded a $20 million ransom, which the company reportedly didn’t pay in full.

Online hacking has been a major concern for several automobile manufacturers around the world over the past few years. In recent times, Ferrari became the victim of online hacking when the Italian supercar marquee’s seven gigabytes of critical internal documents were stolen and published online by the hackers. Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and its luxury car wing Genesis too faced similar cyberattacks.

Not only the automobile manufacturers but some specific car models, too, faced cyber attacks, making them and their owners vulnerable. For example, earlier in 2022, a Bloomberg report cited a 19-year-old security researcher who claimed to have hacked into 25 Tesla electric cars in 13 countries worldwide. The person reportedly had the ability to control those Tesla electric vehicles remotely. He was claimed to have been able to hack those cars due to a software flaw in Tesla's system.