Uber concealed a hack that affected 57 million customers and drivers, the company has confirmed. Drivers have been offered free credit monitoring protection, but per Uber's statement, affected customers will not be given the same.
'None of this should have happened'
While we have not seen evidence of fraud or misuse tied to the incident, we are monitoring the affected accounts and have flagged them for additional fraud protection," Uber's chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said. None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," he added. "While I can't erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes." In the wake of the news, Uber's chief security officer Joe Sullivan has left the company.
Managing Uber appears to be like a game of Whac-A-Mole - no sooner has one crisis been dealt with when another one rears its ugly head.
This latest scandal, however, threatens to tear apart an already fragile truce between Uber's former chief executive Travis Kalanick and Benchmark, the shareholder that trounced him from the top job then tried to kick him off the board.
These two managed to park their hostilities in order that an investment by Japanese conglomerate Softbank - thought to be worth up to $10bn - would go ahead. But the fact that Uber concealed a massive data breach, which Mr Kalanick knew about a year ago, will do nothing to help matters. Softbank's investment is significant for Uber because it will result in a significant reform of its board and help the business improve its corporate governance, something that desperately needs to be overhauled.
Uber's new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi appears to be starting as he means to go on. In his statement regarding the data breach, he said the company needed to be open and honest if is to "repair our past mistakes". Rajeev Misra, a board director at Softbank, described progress on a deal with Uber as "long and arduous".
With Uber's latest problems, it may become a whole lot tougher
