Uber Technologies Inc. has just announced that it had paid hackers $100,000 not to release data from 57 million accounts, and had concealed the information.
Two people were fired over the incident, including Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan. Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, who only recently learned about the matter, said in a statement on the company’s blog:
“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it.”
The breach occurred in October 2016, when two hackers accessed the proprietary information via GitHub, a collaborative platform for software developers.
Among the stolen information were millions of names, email addresses and mobile numbers of users from around the globe, as well as 600,000 U.S. driver’s license numbers.
“While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,” Khosrowshahi said. “We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.”
The news was first reported on Tuesday by Bloomberg.
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