BUSINESS NEWS - Uber Technologies Inc failed to disclose a massive breach last year that exposed the data of some 57 million users of the ride-sharing service, the company’s new chief executive officer said on Tuesday.
Discovery of the company’s handling of the incident led to the departure of two employees who led Uber’s response to the incident, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who was named CEO in August following the departure of founder Travis Kalanick.
Khosrowshahi said he had only recently learned of the matter himself.
The company’s admission that it failed to disclose the breach comes as Uber seeks to recover from a series of crises that culminated in the Kalanick’s ouster in June.
“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it,” Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
According to the company’s account, two individuals downloaded data from a web-based server at another company that provided Uber with cloud-computing services.
The data contained names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of some 57 million Uber users around the world.
The hackers also downloaded names and driver’s license numbers of some 600,000 of the company’s US drivers, Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
Bloomberg News reported that Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan and a deputy had been ousted from the company this week because of their role in the handling of the incident.
The company paid hackers $100,000 to delete the stolen data, according to Bloomberg.
