Honda Motors admits data breach of 283,000 customers

The Japanese auto major Honda Motor Company has admitted that an estimated 283,000 customers' info at Honda Canada has been breached, the company said in a statement.

We do not recommend that customers take any specific action at this time, other than being alert for marketing campaigns from third parties that reference your ownership of a Honda vehicle, the carmaker said in a statement.

The breach involved the unauthorized access of information in 2009 records, specifically name, address, Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and in a small number of cases, Honda Financial Services (HFS) account numbers, the carmaker said.

However, the breach did not include any data that would typically be used for identity theft or fraud such as birth dates, telephone numbers, email addresses, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, driver's license numbers, social insurance numbers, or dollar amounts of HFS financing or payments, it said.

This is the second time during the past six month a data breach has happened. Earlier in January, the carmaker had put an estimated 2.2 million customers in the U.S. on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked.

If customers have any query about the incident, they can contact special toll-free line at 1-800-839-2826 which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the statement said.