A Canadian behind mass piracy of Uber in 2016

QMI agency

Tuesday, February 6, 2018 21:33

UPDATE
Tuesday, 6 February 2018 21:35

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WASHINGTON | An individual operating out of Canada has orchestrated, with the help of an accomplice was established in Florida, mass piracy of the data of 57 million users of Uber, revealed a manager of the company on Tuesday.

Last year, the company was revealed to have been a victim of hacking on the part of individuals who had then claimed a sum of money “in six figures” in order not to reveal the data. “The individual original [who has contacted Uber] was in Canada, while her partner, who has obtained the data, was in Florida,” explained the head of the security of the information of Uber, John Flynn, before a committee of the u.s. Senate.

In order to avoid that the data be made public, Uber had paid $ 100,000 to hackers via a program designed to reward the people finding flaws in computer security.

Mr. Flynn has acknowledged that his employer had committed a “mistake” by not disclosing more quickly the fact that Uber had been a victim of hacking massive. The company had waited a year before revealing the new.

“Although we regret not to be unveiled publicly this incident in 2016, we have, at this time, taken a number of actions to improve the security of our business”, pointed out, however, Mr. Flynn.

During the hacking, the hackers had stolen the phone numbers, names and addresses of the approximately 57 million users of the service in the world, including 25 million in the United States, including $ 4.1 million of american drivers. The driver’s license numbers of approximately 600 000 drivers had been stolen.

In January, a Montrealer, Pierre-Olivier Fortin, has filed a request for collective action of $ 10 million against Uber in the guise of punitive damages.