It wasn’t even two years ago that Uber was fined for failing to disclose a data breach in 2014, and here we are again in the midst of another scandal. This time, it involves the personal and confidential data of 57 million riders and drivers, all of which was retrieved by hackers who held the data for ransom. Uber isn’t only responsible for not reporting this hack, but for also covering it up – a move made by former Chief Security Officer, Joe Sullivan, and his subordinates. Former CEO Travis Kalanick was also informed of the attack just a month after it happened and still failed to report it to the FTC despite the fact that it was involved in negotiating over a privacy settlement with the agency at the time of the hack. Uber claims that it took immediate steps to secure the data and prevent further unauthorized access. Of course, Uber paid the hackers the $100,000 ransom to delete the data and proceeded to cover up the breach from the FTC.

Uber has been in constant hot water over the last couple of years with scandal after scandal seeming to take place. As of now, the company is facing no less than five criminal probes from the justice department. The JD is looking into possible bribes, theft of a competitor’s intellectual property, questionable pricing schemes, and illicit software, among other things. And, while these questionable practices did help the company spring forward to success, it now falls back to Earth under the scrutiny of being more corrupt than the Soviet Union and North Korea combined.

In a move to try to save face, current CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, issued a statement claiming that the company is changing the way it does business and that the company will learn from its mistakes:

“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. We are changing the way we do business. At the time of the incident, we took immediate steps to secure the data and shut down further unauthorized access by the individuals. We also implemented security measures to restrict access to and strengthen controls on our cloud-based storage accounts,” Khosrowshahi continued, “While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes.

Keep in mind that this attack was handled very incorrectly, but by former management who is no longer with the company. Once the hack came to the attention of the new CEO, it was reported immediately, which is, no doubt, the right thing to do. At this point, the latest news is that New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman has opened up an investigation into the hack and it’s subsequent coverup. Should more news come to light, we’ll be sure to update you accordingly.

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