Uber Paid Hackers To Delete Data Stolen From More Than 50 Million Users Worldwide and Did Not Tell the Public
It was recently revealed that in 2016, Uber paid a group of hackers to delete data stolen from more than 50 million users and drivers of the ride-hailing app. Making matters worse, the company only talked about the hacking incident more than a year since it happened.
The hacking involved the names, email addresses, and personal contact numbers of more than 50 million users worldwide, including the driver's license numbers of about 600,000 Uber partners in the United States, the ride-hailing app company confirmed in a statement made by their new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi.
The company confirmed they were now informing every driver that had their personal information exposed and added: "We are providing these drivers with free credit monitoring and identity theft protection."
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It was also reported that former executives of Uber agreed to pay the hackers as much as $100,000 under the condition that the group would delete the data that was stolen in October 2016.
As the new leadership of Uber found out about the massive data breach, they decided to fire the company's chief security officer and a deputy for their involvement in paying the hackers as well as keeping the information hidden from the public.
The report did not identify which group was responsible for the Uber hack last year, but Khosrowshahi maintained the company had made sure the hackers' access to the stolen data and their copies were destroyed.
In the end, the Uber CEO said: "None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. While I can't erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes. We are changing the way we do business."
Meanwhile, according to reports, Uber also confirmed they had informed Japanese company SoftBank about the 2016 data breach while they were still investigating it.
"We informed SoftBank that we were investigating a data breach, consistent with our duty to disclose to a potential investor, even though our information at the time was preliminary and incomplete," Uber said.
Despite the efforts from the new Uber leadership to uncover the mistakes committed by the people in the organization before them, the company is still facing an investigation being conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and lawsuits from the consumers as well as the New York Attorney General's office for the massive data breach.
