CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A company that provides a parking payment and reservation app for Charlotteans confirmed Thursday their app was breached, exposing millions of accounts.
ParkMobile, which provides the Park It Charlotte app, confirmed they were communicating with their customers via their website and with in-app messaging. The company said about 21 million accounts were accessed in the security breach, which included users in Charlotte. While parking transaction data and credit card information were not exposed, ParkMobile did confirm license plate numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and vehicle nicknames were accessed. A small percentage of mailing addresses were also exposed.
Further, ParkMobile's update on April 13 confirmed encrypted passwords were accessed, but not the necessary encryption keys needed to read them. While there are precautions in place to prevent password exposure, the company still encouraged users to change their passwords in the app.
The company said more sensitive data is not collected, including Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, or dates of birth. Additionally, any ParkMobile app user who created an account after March 17, 2021, wasn't affected.
ParkMobile said once they discovered the breach, they eliminated the vulnerability immediately. The company also promised they had strong security measures in place, but said evolving cybersecurity threats required continued changes on their end as well.
