New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into Uber’s concealment of a data breach in 2016, according to a report.
57 million riders and drivers were affected by a 2016 data breach, which Uber attempted to cover up by paying off the hackers to stay silent.
Usernames, email addresses, and phone numbers were all exposed by the hack.
“The revelation that Uber concealed a major 2016 data breach affecting 57 million users and paid hackers to destroy the evidence is yet another PR nightmare from Uber’s darkest era, but it’s also a major problem when it comes to state laws around data breach disclosure practices,” reported Tech Crunch on Tuesday. “In light of Bloomberg’s report, the office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman confirmed to TechCrunch that it has opened an investigation into the incident.”
Tech Crunch also added that Uber could face problems in their home state of California for the attempted data breach cover up.
“Given the New York Attorney General’s interest in the latest Uber scandal, it follows that Uber will likely be in the hot seat in its home state of California, where under Civil Code 1798.82 businesses are required to disclose data breaches affecting more than 500 state residents to the Attorney General ‘in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay’,” they explained.
In response to the incident, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi declared, “None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. We are changing the way we do business.”
“At the time of the incident, we took immediate steps to secure the data and shut down further unauthorized access by the individuals,” he continued, adding, “We also implemented security measures to restrict access to and strengthen controls on our cloud-based storage accounts.”
The investigation is the latest in a string of bad news for Uber. There have been numerous claims of sexual assault and harassment by Uber drivers, and last week, a lawsuit filed against Uber by two women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Uber drivers claimed “thousands of female passengers have endured unlawful conduct by their Uber drivers.”
Uber has previously attacked Breitbart News, demanding its advertisements be removed from the website and declaring that the ridesharing company wants “nothing to do” with Breitbart News and its readers.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington and Gab @Nash, or like his page at Facebook.
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