On November 21st, Uber disclosed that they hid a security breach that occurred a year ago, and that they paid the hacker who did it $100,000 to keep quiet. The breach exposed 57 million driver and rider accounts, which included driver licenses, telephones, email addresses, and names. It seems that Uber’s coding site was compromised and the credentials were taken to access an Amazon Web Services account which had the account information.
This incident not only broke federal and state laws but further ruin the reputation of Uber who plan to go public in 2019. It seems the company has not learned their lesson after their data breach in 2014. It’s also surprising because Uber has Joe Sullivan, a seasoned chief security officer who used to head up security at Facebook for seven years. From words of former employees, it seems that Mr. Sullivan and his chief executive Travis Kalanick decided made the decision to pay the hacker (Isaac, Benner, & Frenkel, 2017).
As outlined in FBI’s news article, paying the hackers is never the right move (2016). Even when paid, the attackers might not honor the agreement. In Uber’s case, the hacker allowed Uber access to his computer and signed a non-disclosure agreement. However, he might not have destroyed all the copies of the data and could have passed the data to another party. Also, paying off a hacker means also funding criminal activities. The hacker could use the funds to start another attack.
For drivers that had their data compromised, Uber will provide free credit and identity theft protection (Newcomer, 2017). For the rest of us, this is a learning experience. If you are the target of a ransomware attack, do not pay the ransom. No good would come out of the payment. Remember to routinely back up your data and be on the lookout for malicious links or attachment in emails. Stay vigilance, and you won’t be the next victim of an attack.
References
FBI News. (2016, April 29). Incidents of Ransomware on the Rise. Retrieved from
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/incidents-of-ransomware-on-the-rise/incidents-of-ransomware-on-the-rise
Issac, M., Benner, K., & Frenkel, S. (2017, Nov 21). Uber Hid 2016 Breach, Paying Hackers to Delete Stolen Data. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/uber-hack.html
Newcomer, E. (2017, Nov 21). Uber Paid Hackers to Delete Stolen Data on 57 Million People. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-data
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