As well as allegedly ignoring legal requirements to report the breach, it is claimed the duo paid hackers $100,000 to delete the compromised data and cover it up. The claims come from a blog by new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi pointing out that he had only recently learned of the breach and adding that the two people who led the response ‘have left the company’. He continued: ‘None of this should have happened and I will not make excuses for it…While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes’. The company’s founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick, was himself ousted by investors in June.

Millions affected

The company has revealed that the hack affected 50 million riders and 7 million drivers with names, contact information and license numbers of 600,000 drivers taken. 

Investigations and actions

Within hours of the disclosure, Uber users filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court and the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said that it would launch an investigation. His office fined Uber in January of 2016 for failure to disclose a prior data breach. The federal government has at least five open investigations into the company.