57 million profiles got hacked, but company failed to alert users

If you had an Uber account in October of 2016, then your profile was most likely hacked. Someone had access to your name, your email address, and even your phone number, without your permission, and worse, without Uber's permission. In fact, if you’re a driver, they probably saw your Driving Licence number too.

According to Expanded Ramblings, Uber has 7 million drivers. That puts the extent of the hack into perspective.

The only reason we know this now is because the current CEO of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, told us. The CEO, who only just assumed the role in August, said this about the leaks:

“You may be asking why we are just talking about this now, a year later. I had the same question, so I immediately asked for a thorough investigation.”

And regarding the response of the company to this at the time of the incident, he said:

“At the time of the incident, we took immediate steps to secure the data and shut down further unauthorized access by the individuals. We subsequently identified the individuals and obtained assurances that the downloaded data had been destroyed.”

According to Bloomberg, Uber also paid $100,000 hush money to the hackers, so they can stay quiet. A spokesman for Uber’s CEO declined to comment on this matter.

Uber’s village people are chasing them.

It’s such a bad time to be Uber. When you’re not dealing with public protests, you’re dealing with a scandalous CEO or even accusations of sexual harassment by your employees. This latest revelation is clearly not going to boost user’s confidence in the confidence in the company.

How the hackers did it.

Uber told Bloomberg that in October of 2016, two hackers accessed a private site where Uber’s employees stored and accessed code. The hackers then used access credentials from the site to access an Amazon Web Services account to gain access to driver and rider info.

The hackers then informed the company in November that they had carried out the hack and requested for a ransom. While there are speculations that Uber paid $100K, the company’s spokesperson has refused to confirm this.

The New York Attorney-General’s office has opened an investigation into the breach.

Keep your friends close. Keep your data closer.