Uber Covers Up Massive Data Breach of 57 million Users

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Its most likely Uber's New CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi has inherited yet another scandal from the former CEO, Travis Kalanick. The transportation firm has revealed to Bloomberg that it covered up a cyberattack which exposed the personal info for roughly 57 million Uber customers and drivers in October 2016, including names, phone numbers and email addresses. Instead of Uber reporting this incident to the government and the general public, it paid hackers $100,000 to delete the information and keep quiet for more than a year.

Uber said, there's no evidence the data was abused, however, Khosrowshahi isn't about to defend his company's past behavior.

"I will not make excuses for it," he said in a statement.

Uber has fired its Chief of security, Officer Joe Sullivan and his deputies accordingly including senior lawyer Craig Clark, for playing key roles in covering up the truth. Uber drivers in particular are now getting free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

News of this data breach reveals how much of a challenge Khosrowshahi faces. The company was continuing its habit of ignoring the law even after it had settled a lawsuit in New York over data security disclosures. Now I'm thinking if Uber could face these kinds of legal threats and still decide to cover up an attack than protect its users, it clearly need major reforms in its operations.

SOURCE: Bloomberg, Uber

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