Uber Paid off Hackers to Keep a Massive Cyberattack under Wraps

Uber is in the spotlight again.

Uber, the global transportation technology company based in San Francisco, has been in the spotlight lately, and not in a good way. To be fair, when you pay off a group of hackers to keep a major security breach hidden from the public, you’re going to get bad press. The sad news is that Uber may have done just that in late 2016 when this hack happened. The company allegedly paid the hackers over $100,000 to keep the event under wraps and to “destroy the stolen data.”

How bad was this hack?

Well, the group managed to steal the personal data of more than 57 million registered Uber users. This data includes “home” and “work” physical addresses, phone numbers, full names, and e-mail addresses. The worse part is that they also got their hands on the driving license numbers of more than 600,000 drivers registered to the service.  When it comes to bank account details and credit-card numbers, it’s not yet clear if the hackers stole this information as well. Regarding the driving licenses, Uber has urged drivers to send in their old ones and have new ones made. The company is offering to cover these costs, which makes sense.

However, we don’t know how they will manage to appease the riders, especially considering the vast amount of compromised personal data.