It's been a year for Harley-Davidson. Like, it's been a hard year.
The Motor Co's stock has tumbled. Its CEO has fought claims of being woke and caved to outside pressure even though it's the most un-woke company around. It's losing business because it's so anti-woke, in fact. LiveWire has burned through cash like kindling with gasoline poured on top of it. And, well, the company can't seem to sell any motorcycles to young people. At least, younger than 60. Everything, as it were, isn't coming up Milhouse!
So how do you cap off such a fantastic year? Well, how does a potential data breach sound? One that potentially exposed thousands of customers to outside eyes?
Yikes.
According to multiple sources, including the site RedHotCyber, the Harley-Davidson hack occurred last month by the hacker group "888," which claimed responsibility. The site states that, "According to the threat actor, the data breach would have taken place in December 2024 and would have exposed approximately 66,700 Harley-Davidson customer data records. The forum post states that the compromised information would include personal details such as names, addresses, emails, and other vehicle-related preferences. A sample has been reported within the forum that shows a series of data presumably exfiltrated from the company’s IT infrastructure or from a third-party vendor."
The site, along with others, haven't yet been able to verify the group's hack claim, though a number of high-profile automotive and other industry hacks have occurred, including that of Volkswagen a few weeks ago. RideApart reached out to Harley-Davidson for comment, but haven't yet heard back at the time of publishing.
As for those customers potentially affected, it wouldn't be a great start to 2025, as the site puts it, "Personal information such as names, addresses and preferences could be used for malicious purposes, including identity theft, financial fraud and targeted phishing campaigns. Additionally, the exposure of vehicle data could pose an additional risk to users’ personal security."
It would also be another black eye for Harley-Davidson at a time when it can't afford any more lumps. We'll update this story if and when we hear back from Harley. Hopefully, it's just a fake. But if it isn't, I'll repeat...yikes.
