Uber bought off hackers who stole customer and driver data
Kalanick learned of the breach in November 2016, a month after it took place
Toronto/San Francisco — Uber Technologies paid hackers $100,000 to keep secret a massive breach last year that exposed the personal information of about 57-million accounts of the ride-service provider, the company said on Tuesday. Discovery of the US company’s cover-up of the incident resulted in the firing of two employees responsible for its response to the hack, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who replaced co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO in August. "None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," Khosrowshahi said in a blog post. The hack is another controversy for Uber — on top of sexual harassment allegations, a lawsuit alleging trade secrets theft and multiple federal criminal probes that culminated in Kalanick’s ouster in June. The stolen information included names, e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers of Uber users around the world, and the names and licence numbers of 600,000 US drivers, Khosrowshahi said. Uber passengers need not worry as there was...
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