Oil Giant Shell Plc Is Investigating A Potential Cyber Breach On It’s Networks

Shell Plc is currently investigating a possible data breach by the Ransomware group Clop.

Clop marked Shell among other victims, including corporations and organizations in the US and Europe, on its website late Wednesday. This comes after it claimed responsibility for the attack on the file-sharing app, Moveit.

Besides Shell, victims consisted of US universities, insurance, and manufacturing companies, as well as banks, investment platforms, and financial services corporations.

Researcher Exposes Database Threat

Security researcher Anurag Sen discovered an online database that possessed close to a terabyte of logging data relating to Shell Recharge, the firm’s international network of hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations, which it acquired in part from Greenlots in 2019.

Sen asserted that the internal database, hosted on Amazon’s cloud, possesses millions of logs, including details about clients who used the EV charging network.

Furthermore, The system database had no password, authorizing anyone on the internet to access its data, the data comprised names, email addresses, and phone numbers of fleet customers who use the EV charging network.

Additionally, The database contained names of fleet operators, which specified organizations — such as police departments — with vehicles that recharge on the network.

Shell Data Leak Details And Date Ambiguous

Sen said the database also contained the locations of Shell’s EV charging stations, including private residential charging points, one of the exposed records contained a residential address belonging to Greenlot CEO Andreas Lips.

Currently, It’s unclear how the database became publicly exposed, or how long the data was publicized — though some of the information is as recent as 2023.

Shell representative Anna Arata said in a statement that the firm has taken steps to stem and identify the vulnerability of the Recharge Solutions data. She added that they are investigating the situation and will take any essential future actions accordingly.