More than 283,000 customers at Honda Canada have had their details handed over to spammers and cyber criminals in a hack of the car company. Honda Canada said names, addresses, vehicle identification numbers and in some cases financing account numbers were taken in the hack.

The outfit claimed that it was not the sort of data which was any use to a cyber criminal as it did not have things like birth dates  or credit card information. Although it admits that it could be used to send out malware spam which pretends to be from Honda.

The data was collected in 2009 as part of a series of customer mail programs encouraging Honda and Acura owners to register at the myHonda and myAcura websites. The Toronto Star reported Honda first noticed suspicious activity on the e-commerce websites in late February.

The company said it is notifying all the affected customers by mail.