Avis Car Rental hit by data breach

Car rental giant Avis is notifying hundreds of thousands of people that their personal information and driver’s license numbers were stolen in an August cyberattack.

On Monday, a filing with Maine’s attorney general revealed that Avis’ data breach affects a total of 299,006 individuals to date. The company’s data breach notification letter states that Avis discovered the breach on August 5th, indicating it took at least one day to kick the malicious actors out.

Avis Car Rental is America’s third-largest car rental company with a significant global presence. The company operates in over 160 countries and has over 5,500 locations worldwide. Its 2022 revenue stood at $12 billion.

Avis did not disclose the nature of the cyberattack and details of the incident remain scarce. In a data breach notice filed late last week with Iowa’s attorney general, the car rental company said that the stolen information includes customer names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, their date of birth, credit card numbers and expiration dates, and driver’s license numbers. It’s not yet known why Avis stored this sensitive customer information in a way that allowed it to be compromised.