UBER Reveals It Hid A Huge Data Breach - Which Affected 57 Million Customers

Uber concealed a hack that affected 57 million customers and drivers, the company has now confirmed.

The 2016 breach was hidden by the firm, and saw them pay hackers $100,000 (£75,000) to delete the breached data.

The company's former chief executive Travis Kalanick knew about the breach over a year ago, according to Bloomberg, which first broke the news.

The hackers found 57 million names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers, Uber said.

Within that number, 600,000 drivers had their names and licence details exposed. A resource page for those affected has been set up.

Drivers have been offered free credit monitoring protection, but according to Uber's statement, affected customers will not be given the same.

Companies are required to disclose significant data breaches to regulators, something it has by its own admission failed to do in this case.

Uber has form. In January it was fined $20,000 for failing to disclose a considerably less serious breach in 2014.

The company plans to release a statement to customers saying it has seen “no evidence of fraud or misuse tied to the incident.”

What To Do

Based on the data which has been compromised, Uber customers are advised to:

• Be aware of a rise in scam phone calls.
• Be on the look out for phishing emails as well - especially those related to UBER or the data breach.
• While it is not thought that passwords have been affected, it is always best practice in light of a data breach to update the passwords for affected accounts - and any others with the same (or highly similar) password(s).