Newbie Question: Hole in oil filter; how?

Drove onto my drive and noticed my Coupe was leaving a trail of Oil. I traced this back to the oil filter which had a tiny hole on the top(?!) and was responsible for leaving my engine with dangerously low levels of oil.



I do live on an unmade road and if the hole was on the bottom I would understand that a rock on the road may have bounced up and made it but this does seem unlikely. Any ideas how this may have occurred and whether it is part of a greater problem that might need addressing? It might be worth noting that it had been sitting in a garage for 4 months still before this happened.

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