Despite how popular ride sharing is in contemporary society, Uber has had its fair share of issues in recent years. Among the midst of gaining a new CEO, dealing with sexual assault accusations, and a midst of other negative press, the company is now finalizing a 2016 data breach issue by paying out a whopping $148 million in fines distributed all across the 50 United States.
So what went wrong in this business? Let’s break it down. Uber experienced a large data breach in 2016. During this time, hackers gained access to the drivers licenses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of over 50 million riders and drivers, with 600,000 being U.S. Citizens. Uber decided, in fear of negative press, that they would pay the hacker $100,000 as hush money so they would keep their mouth shut.
While the hacker agreed to delete the information and take the money, the U.S. government still discovered that Uber had been lying by keeping the breach quiet. This caused them to be fined the $148 million. With the company looking to go public, it is important for them to resolve all negative perceptions of themselves in a timely manner. In order to prevent this from happening again, Uber is hiring third-party services to make sure their privacy is within regulation.
