57 Million Uber Accounts had Their Data Compromised

For some reason, trouble seems to follow Uber around. In the last year, the ride-hailing giant has had to deal with its CEO resigning, an FBI investigation, London’s decision to kick it out of the city, among numerous other setbacks. Now, there’s a new scandal involving a massive data breach it paid to cover up.

Reuters reports that last year, about 57 million accounts had their personal data leaked. Uber then reportedly paid hackers $100,000 to keep that information from getting out. In a company blog post, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s new CEO, said the incident should never have happened or been covered up, and that two employees have been fired as a result.

Still, regulators are not happy. New York’s attorney general has already opened an investigation, and regulators in Australia and the Philippines have said they’ll look into the incident, as well. Meanwhile, regulators in the U.K. said the coverup raises “huge concerns.”

“Deliberately concealing breaches from regulators and citizens could attract higher fines for companies,” said James Dipple-Johnstone, deputy commissioner of the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office, in a statement.

Uber says it believes at least 600,000 U.S. users had their names and drivers license numbers stolen, along with the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of 57 million more people.

“There is no question that the previous management and security team at Uber failed in their responsibility to their drivers, to regulators, to justice and above all to customers,” Rik Ferguson, vice president of security research at software firm Trend Micro, told Reuters. “That’s a pretty long list.”

Source: Reuters

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