Case Study · Automotive Safety
A secure recall portal for vehicle owners worldwide, verified by VIN
When a global automotive manufacturer headquartered in Germany faced a worldwide steering recall, Dude Lemon built the secure portal where owners could check eligibility by VIN, verify their identity, and complete a guided, encrypted registration, protected by anti-intrusion defenses against VIN enumeration.
Overview
A safety recall where trust and security could not slip
A worldwide steering recall meant a large population of owners needed a fast, trustworthy way to check whether their vehicle was affected and register for the remedy, without exposing personal data or letting bad actors harvest valid VINs.
Dude Lemon collaborated closely with teams at the manufacturer to build the secure portal end to end: VIN-based eligibility lookup, authenticated retrieval of owner details, and a guided multi-stage registration with validated, encrypted photo uploads transferred securely to their servers, all hardened against automated abuse.
Owners could confirm eligibility and complete registration in a single secure flow, while anti-intrusion defenses blocked attempts to enumerate VINs and steal the data of legitimate owners.
The collaboration
Engineered alongside the manufacturer
We collaborated at a high level with teams at the manufacturer, building to their requirements and security expectations and scoping each part of the program together as the recall rolled out worldwide.
The work spanned the owner-facing portal, the data and registration pipeline, and the secure handoff of validated content to their systems, engineered as one coordinated effort.
What we built
From VIN lookup to secure registration
Security & data
Protecting owners and their VINs
A public recall portal is a target. Bad actors try to harvest valid VINs and the owner data tied to them. We engineered the portal so that ownership is verified before access, uploads are validated and encrypted, data moves to their servers under encryption, and automated enumeration is detected and blocked.
Have a high-stakes launch or recall that has to be secure and flawless from day one? We should talk.
Book a discovery callEngagement & delivery
Built secure, launched worldwide
Secure access
VIN eligibility lookup and identity-gated login, so each owner sees only their own vehicle and details.
Registration and validation
The multi-stage upload flow: photo capture, validation, encryption, and secure transfer to the manufacturer.
Hardening and launch
Anti-intrusion defenses against VIN enumeration, and reliability engineered for the traffic a worldwide recall drives.
This engagement is described under confidentiality. The client, a global automotive manufacturer headquartered in Germany, is not identified here; identifying details may be reviewed privately with qualified parties. Dude Lemon worked as an independent contractor.